Care Force One Is Making Nearly 40 Stops Across Four Weeks, Taking the Fight Directly to Communities Where Families Are Hit Hardest by Rising Health Care Costs and Coverage Losses
Watch the event in Westfield here.
Westfield, NJ – This morning, Protect Our Care’s Care Force One arrived in Westfield and was joined by Health Care Executive Rebecca Bennett, 314 Action President Shaughnessy Naughton, SEIU New Jersey Executive President Andy Cassengull, Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach, and health care advocates Theresa Grimm and Laura Packard as part of the “Sick of It! Fix Health Care Now” bus tour, calling out Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress for taking a wrecking ball to our health care system. Across the country, hard-working families are fed up with the growing health care crisis after Trump and Republicans like Rep. Tom Kean Jr. slashed more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and gutted Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. During the event, New Jerseyans impacted by Republican cuts to health care called on lawmakers to enact commonsense health care solutions, including restoring tax credits to lower insurance premiums, reversing devastating Medicaid cuts, expanding Medicare’s power to negotiate lower prices for more drugs and extending those lower prices to all Americans with insurance, penalizing drug companies that raise prices faster than inflation, and protecting patients from high costs by extending the annual $2,000 out-of-pocket cap and the $35 insulin co-pay cap to people with private coverage.
“Our current health care system is broken,” said Rebecca Bennett, Health Care Executive. “It’s not working for patients. It’s not working for providers. It’s not working for caregivers. Tom Kean Jr. was the deciding vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill, which is why tens of thousands of people in our district are losing access to their health insurance. And people do not have money in their budget to increase their health insurance premium by thousands of dollars.
“It’s not news that in New Jersey, especially in CD-07, Tom Kean Jr. has really betrayed our neighbors, our communities here,” said Andy Cassengull, Executive President, SEIU New Jersey. “And it’s completely appalling what he’s done. We all know that these Medicaid cuts are hurting nursing homes, hurting hospitals, putting employees in the position to have to buy supplies for the patients that they’re taking care of out of their pockets, even though they’re not making enough to take care of their families or themselves.”
“At 314 Action, we are sick of it. We’re sick of Trump’s magic math on his prescription drug pricing. We’re sick of the lies,” said 314 Action President Shaughnessy Naughton. “Republicans in Congress are selling our health care to the highest bidder. They stood with Trump to pass the big ugly bill, which was the largest cut to health care in American history. They stripped millions, trillions from funding for Medicare and ended the Affordable Care Act subsidies that so many families depended on, all to give billionaires tax breaks. And that’s why we’re joining Protect Our Care today on their bus tour to speak to communities like this who are looking for answers about how to make it through this crisis.”
“In February 2025, I stood outside Congressman Tom Kean Jr.’s office in Bernardsville protesting proposed Medicaid cuts,” said Theresa Grimm, health care advocate. “At the time, I felt like Chicken Little, warning that the sky was falling. Now we are watching pieces of it come down. I know what it means to depend on Medicaid because I depend on it myself. I know what it means to coordinate care, fight for services, and worry about whether the providers my children rely on will still be available. I also know that families like mine are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for the health care our children need to live, learn, and participate in their communities. For our family, this is not an abstract policy debate. It is the difference between receiving consistent care and being forced to start over. And this is only the beginning.”
“Nine years ago I walked into the doctor’s office with a nagging cough and walked out with a stage four cancer diagnosis,” said Laura Packard, cancer survivor and health care advocate. “Luckily, I had good insurance that paid for the chemotherapy and radiation I needed to survive. But I’m sick of watching Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, like Rep. Tom Kean Jr., demolish our health care system. Lawmakers need to restore the tax credits that keep premiums affordable, reverse these devastating Medicaid cuts, and make sure people like me can actually afford to survive. Cancer doesn’t wait, and neither should Congress. ”
“Families across this country are sick of it, and they’re making their voices heard loud and clear,” said Leslie Dach, Protect Our Care Chair. “Care Force One is hitting the road to put every Republican who voted to gut our health care on notice. Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, like Rep. Tom Kean Jr., rammed through the largest health care cuts in history, slashing more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, and ripping away tax credits to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. They knew exactly what that would do: close hospitals, cause premiums to skyrocket, and make families ration care they can’t afford to skip. What they didn’t count on was how furious people would get once they felt the consequences. We’re bringing this fight to nearly 40 communities over four weeks, and we’re not letting Republicans off the hook. They decimated our health care system to pay for tax cuts for their donors, and this November, they’re going to answer for it.”
Next week, the “Sick of It! Fix Health Care Now” bus tour will continue in Virginia, where Protect Our Care will be joined by Rep. Suhas Subramanyam. For more information, click here.