FLINT, Mich. – For hospice nurse Julie Campbell-Inman, the work is never about death. It is about life, dignity, and supporting families through their hardest days. But today, she says her patients are facing new dangers because of cuts to Medicaid and Medicare — and now a federal government shutdown.
Campbell-Inman, a member of AFSCME Local 875, has been a nurse for more than 20 years. She now cares for patients in their homes through McLaren Health Care, visiting as many as 14 families at a time.
She helps with pain management, supports families navigating paperwork, and coordinates with social workers, aides, and clergy to make sure patients get the care and comfort they need.
Most of the families she serves are on Medicaid and Medicare. Without those programs, she says, her patients would not have access to care at all. Yet those are the very services being slashed.
“We see when people cannot afford insurance, they wait until they are critically ill,” Campbell-Inman says. “Instead of a simple infection being treated, it becomes life-threatening. And with cuts, it is only getting worse. Our emergency rooms are overrun.”
She points to her own son, who has a job but relies on Medicaid to cover basic care. Without it, he would struggle to afford dental treatment, medication for migraines, and routine health visits.
“It just breaks my heart that in a country with so many billionaires, they are that stingy that they do not even want to help another human being,” Campbell-Inman says.
Instead of fixing the health care crisis they created, the president and his yes-men and women in Congress are forcing a government shutdown, so they can protect the big tax breaks to billionaires and greedy corporations they passed in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.”
For workers like Campbell-Inman and the families she serves, the impact of health care cuts is immediate and severe.
“Our elderly and young people are the ones hurt most by these cuts,” she says. “Families cannot take care of their parents or grandparents while also holding down jobs. People need to remember who their representatives are supposed to serve. It should not be billionaires. It should be the people.”
Campbell-Inman believes more people are waking up to that fact. “I was not political for most of my life,” she said. “But I see now how much these decisions affect everyone, every single day.”
AFSCME members like Campbell-Inman are sounding the alarm: health care and public services must be funded and protected. Families deserve the freedom to care for loved ones without losing their jobs, their savings, or their health.