Letter to the editor: Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill and the 'Great Die Off '

Donald Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” isn’t health care reform — it’s a death sentence. By slashing Medicaid, dismantling the ACA and triggering automatic Medicare cuts, this bill will by some estimates cause more than 500,000 preventable deaths over the next decade.

So while the rich get tax breaks, the poor, sick, elderly and disabled get ignored? Trump and his billionaire cronies have set in motion what some are calling the “Great Die Off” — a slow, calculated erasure of vulnerable Americans.

I think the most immediate victims will be poor seniors in nursing homes, where Medicaid cuts and repealed minimum staffing requirements will lead to deadly neglect. Then come the chronically ill, pregnant women, rural families — anyone who relies on Medicaid or struggling community hospitals.

Starting in 2027, sequestration will trigger a reduction in Medicare benefits to offset tax cuts for the wealthy. Those barely affording medicine now might not survive what’s coming.

All of this was foreseeable. None of it is accidental. I guess Trump doesn’t care.

It’s a moral catastrophe in the making. And every legislator who supported the bill must be held to account in the 2026 midterm elections.

Michael Pardus

Penn Township, Westmoreland County