Halfway through the open enrollment period, a local nonprofit is sounding the alarm about rising healthcare costs for ordinary Nevadans.
Nevadans for the Common Good organized the event on Sunday afternoon, which they dubbed Rally for the People.
Members of the nonpartisan interfaith group gathered in front of St. James the Apostle Catholic Church, located in Las Vegas’s Historic Westside. They were protesting the loss of federal Affordable Care Act tax credits, as well as the new restrictions on Medicaid eligibility in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Jessica Hutchings is a rabbi-cantor at Congregation Ner Tamid, a Jewish Synagogue in Henderson. Hutchings said her best friend was a victim of profit-first health insurance coverage.
"My own best friend, just a few months ago, entered one of our hospitals and found out that she had a disease so rare that it could only be treated in Houston, Texas," Hutchings said. "Hours and hours and hours, day after day, week after week, her family fought for insurance to find a way to get her medical transport. And by the time that we finally got her there, after having to create a GoFundMe, she only lived for two more days. I'd like to believe that if she had gotten the care she needed, that we would have had a much longer time with her."
Nevada Health Link, the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace, estimates the average Nevadan will see their healthcare premiums rise by 26 percent next year. And, experts say, nearly 100,000 Nevadans on Medicaid stand to lose their coverage due to new work requirements over the next decade.
