Every year around tax time, I come home from a long shift, still in scrubs, and sit down with my pay stubs, trying to make the numbers work. Like most people, I don’t have fancy accountants or complicated investments—just a paycheck that gets taxed before it even hits my bank account.
I’m a healthcare worker from Santa Clara County, in the center of Silicon Valley. I’m also a single mother of three boys. My youngest is 8 and autistic, and I handle all of his therapy and medical appointments on my own.
The Medi-Cal services he depends on are the same services now on the chopping block because of massive federal budget cuts, and the healthcare system I work in every day is the one being gutted to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
That’s the part that keeps me up at night. As a healthcare worker, I’m watching hospitals and clinics across California close or teeter on the edge. I see what staffing shortages do to patients. I know what happens when an ER shuts down and the nearest one is an hour away.
And then I come home, and as a parent I’m worried whether my son is going to lose the services he needs, and whether I can keep stretching a paycheck that’s past the breaking point. I’m being squeezed at both ends, and the ultra-wealthy people who could fix it pay much lower tax rates than what working families like mine pay out of every paycheck.
The wealth of California’s billionaires sits in portfolios that grow and grow but remain largely untaxed, while every dollar I earn gets a cut taken before it even reaches my bank account. Meanwhile, I’m cutting corners everywhere I can. My kids rely on their school’s breakfast and lunch programs. I’ve considered a second job, but if I’m working a second shift, who’s going to take my son to his appointments?
When I talk to people about the Billionaires Tax, some shrug it off. They think if they’re not on Medi-Cal, it doesn’t impact them. But when hospitals close and emergency rooms disappear, that affects everyone, whether you have private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare or no coverage at all.
People don’t picture a worker in scrubs when they think about who relies on Medi-Cal. But my three boys and I depend on it every day.
President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” siphons $100 billion from California’s healthcare system over five years to fund tax cuts for billionaires.
Soon, some local hospitals and emergency rooms will be forced to shut their doors. Not because there’s no solution to keep them open, but because a small group of the ultra-wealthy insists on paying less than what the rest of us contribute out of every paycheck.
This November, Californians will decide on the proposed Billionaires Tax which would impose a small, one-time tax on the global wealth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires to prevent hospital closures. Public polling shows voters supporting the measure by a 2-1 margin. Everyday working people are tired of being handed the bill.
No parent should have to choose between a second job and making sure their child gets the care they need. No healthcare worker should have to wonder whether the system they show up for every day will survive the year.
There is a practical solution, but we need to vote for it. So, as you’re reviewing your tax documents, and you see how much you have paid before your return, or perhaps how much more you’re paying today, remember, a handful of billionaires won’t even kick in 5% one time.
Make a plan to vote and make them pay their fair share.
Yvonne Esquivel is a medical assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Gilroy.
