What we say at rallies and meetings with people who could help, but rarely do, is sometimes abstract and loaded with policy discussions that muddle even interested advocates at times. Healthcare in Colorado and all over the country is not only taking a hit with provisions of the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress in 2024 beginning to take effect, the healthcare industry is also still and increasingly one of the most profitable investment opportunities and nearly one-fifth of our GDP, or gross domestic product, flows from the healthcare industry. Private equity is in. Wall Street is in. It is as though the health industry CEOs and the elected officials they fund know exactly how to play the market to win. Human life is on the balance sheet bottom line buried in accounting lingo and those gorgeous profit terms.

Medicaid cuts hurt people. Medicaid cuts hurt communities. And on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, Coloradans were busy explaining the pain. Some were in warm conference rooms at Denver Health with a United States senator, and some were in the cold rain outside a clinic that could suffer or even close because of the cuts.

Cut losses; maximize gains. We are human widgets—forget the AI revolution if you have ignored the business insurgency into every aspect of the healthcare industry. We all needed to learn the language of greed and profit taking without regard for human life, and all the while we argued lives were lost without coverage. Those numbers of sacrificial dead are no match for the billions and yes, trillions, of dollars wagered, won, and lost making sure that final bottom line looks sexy.

So, in Colorado and all over the country, we gathered to demand those who vote to take our healthcare away will be held accountable. We may be widgets to the bean counters, but to one another and across multiple states and organizations, we stood together against the storm. In Westminster, Colorado, it was freezing rain and chilly, but we stood and carried on.

We intend to love one another enough to make sure human life is the profit we value more than the almighty dollar.

Dr. Vince Markovchick ran the emergency medicine department at Denver Health for 26 years. Think about what he must........

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