As we celebrate the anniversaries of Medicare and Medicaid this month, I’m reminded that these programs aren’t just government policies. For many people, they’re the difference between life and death.
Years ago, after I lost my job, I also lost my health insurance. When I started feeling sick, I told my sister it was “just a cold.” She wasn’t convinced and urged me to see a doctor. I finally went to a CVS MinuteClinic. The clinician looked at my blood sugar and said, “If you don’t get to a hospital right now, you could go into a diabetic coma.”
My first response wasn’t fear. It was embarrassment. “I can’t,” I told her. “I don’t have insurance.”
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She left the room and came back with a handwritten note directing me to Stroger Hospital. “They’ll see you,” she said. “What’s the catch?” I said. “She said, ‘No catch, just care.’”
After hours of paperwork, waiting and testing, I walked out with a new diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, medication and Medicaid coverage that made treatment possible.
Without Medicaid, I might not be here today.
People sometimes talk about Medicaid as if it’s just another line in a budget. To me, it’s the reason I survived long enough to tell this story. It gave me access to doctors, medication and the care I needed when I had nowhere else to turn.
As Medicare and Medicaid mark another anniversary, I hope we remember what these programs truly represent. They provide peace of mind, dignity and, for countless families, a second chance at life.
Healthcare shouldn’t depend on whether you’ve recently lost a job or can afford an insurance premium. Sometimes it simply means giving someone the chance to live.
I’m grateful Medicaid gave me that chance.
— Sonya Taylor, Chicago
Steps to survive domestic violence
Thank you for the editorial “Cook County’s system revictimizes survivors of domestic abuse” (July 9). The Tribune Editorial Board gives praise to Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller and Ald. Silvana Tabares for spearheading a task force that studied the problem for six months to come up with recommendations. Their report was just released, and let’s hope some positive changes come out of it. My favorite quote from the editorial is: “A civilized society does not merely pass laws against domestic violence, it builds institutions capable of protecting the people those laws were written to serve.”
Chicago could be considered more civilized than many cities since it opened a courthouse solely to deal with domestic violence cases in the West Loop in 2005. For the past 13 years, I have volunteered at a domestic violence agency answering the crisis line. I was trained to offer services and phone numbers to callers who needed our help. In the beginning, I wanted to offer every service and every number at once, so as not to miss anything. But my supervisor wisely told me to ask, “What do you need right now?” I did not want to overwhelm them with the multiple steps they needed to take.
These callers needed orders of protection, shelter, counseling, divorce advice, help with custody of minor children and legal help, to name just a few steps.
Surviving domestic violence is a process. The editorial aptly points out the many courts and agencies victims must travel through in order to become whole again. It would be wonderful if our institutions could help them navigate this more easily instead of sending them to many different courthouses and agencies.
I hope all elected officials read the editorial and the report. I look forward to reading about real change in the near future.
— Jan Goldberg, Riverside
The mayor’s shifting of blame
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget discussions make me laugh. It’s good to hear that new tax collections in Chicago are exceeding budget forecasts and that some spending is less than anticipated. However, Johnson isn’t discussing his excess spending.
My laughs turned to tears reading about his blaming aldermen for the budget problems he has caused.
— Richard Prince, Chicago
Illinois, give Connecticut a call
This month, my former home state of Connecticut announced a budget surplus. That’s the eighth year in a row. Surplus funds, more than $10 billion since 2020, are paying down the pension debt that Connecticut had been accumulating, the state’s rainy-day fund is now full, and state programs (school construction, transportation) are receiving support. The state’s credit has been upgraded several times since 2020.
How does Connecticut do it? In 2017, legislators enacted fiscal guardrails and stayed within them. I wonder whether it is also because of the mix of legislators being elected?
Connecticut passed a law in 2005 that offered public financing for election campaigns to all state elective offices (state lawmakers, governor and other state officers). This enables younger civic-minded people (with few high-end donors) to compete. Candidates now come from more areas in the state.
In 2026, many current Connecticut state officers had used public funding to run their campaign. Free from dialing for dollars, legislators use their time and energy to keep in touch with constituents and to concentrate on long-range state concerns.
When I hear about pension debt pushing my new state toward bankruptcy, I wish Illinois would give Connecticut a call.
— Elona Vaisnys, Chicago
Skyrocketing cost of college
I read the op-ed in Tuesday’s Tribune about student loans, expecting to read about a possible solution, but I missed it (“Student loan changes at the federal level call for Illinois leadership,” July 7). I’ve read many articles over the years about inflation and how it occurs, but I have never seen a good explanation of why the cost of higher education has skyrocketed over the same period.
I know I can be identified as an old man, but beginning in 1960, I attended the University of Illinois in Champaign and was able to pay most of my way (90%-plus) with a summer job that lasted just three months. No young person could possibly do that now.
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Does the state of Illinois have anyone auditing the expenses of the various state universities, or is it just the law of supply and demand? Do elected officials have any control over that? Or is it just accepted that a person’s post-college career must begin with a major loan liability?
— Joe Juszak, Sugar Grove
How we can honor Pope Leo
Like a vast number of Americans and Chicagoans, as well as a lifelong practicing Catholic, I am delighted that the pope, a native Chicagoan, is the first American selected to lead the church. However, I find it trivializing and somewhat ridiculous to honor Pope Leo XIV by renaming streets and sandwiches in his honor. Ald. Ray Lopez recently suggested renaming Northerly Island.
These various promotors are well meaning, but If people want to honor the pontiff, they should consider following in his footsteps by being kind and generous to the poor, welcoming toward immigrants, and striving for peace and justice. These would be real tributes that would mean something to Leo. One need only pay attention to his anti-war comments and his encouragement of charity and understanding among all people. His values are those that Jesus Christ asks of us, and no number of signs and other inessentials would actually honor Leo.
I hope all who admire him will work toward the goals that our pope demonstrates in his life. That would really honor him.
— Carol Van Durme, Chicago
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