Why Did We Stand in the Freezing Rain and Snow? Healthcare

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 have seen and heard over time. Human life saved. The care not given when a patient tells the doctor they cannot afford the care or missing work or groceries if they allow care for a serious illness or injury. That is what Dr. Markovchick spoke about. Tender mercies delayed and shared as the rain briefly paused as we listened, as if the universe cared too. (Meanwhile, safe and sound and warm, in the hospital where he gave his professional life for us all, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) held an invitation only round table on the Medicaid cuts. Even the press stayed nice and warm and didn’t come to witness the more than 25 Coloradans who gathered in the cold.)

Lydia Guzman spoke with passion and fire about the damage she saw and sees in lives without access to care; Tyler Quick spoke to us about the issues the LGBTQ+ community faces in receiving not only gender affirming care but HIV prevention and care. We might weep for his reminder to us that what happens in the LGBTQ+ community will also spread to the straight community and others among us. Like it or not, no human is an island. Nope. We are the human community.

What do we demand together in this drippy, difficult weather? We spoke clearly, “Stop Taking Our Healthcare.” No more beautiful bills taking benefits away; no more enforcement of policies in unrelated ways to healthcare delivery; and no more healthcare dollars wasted on business measures like advertising, stockholder pleasures, “inducements” for prescribing or procedures, lobbying expenses for policies passed or policies blocked, or even baubles and freebies when you table with your wares at all those conferences.

Then, we would be fine with seeing that end of the healthcare industry given over to actual delivery of care—for us all. And we intend to stay loud. We intend to be seen. And we intend to love one another enough to make sure human life is the profit we value more than the almighty dollar.