Here's How We Can Make Health Care Happen
Your one action to make this happen is at the bottom of this post. Read the story first—it matters—then scroll down for what to do.
In twelve days, my insurance premiums will quadruple. Here’s why Saturday morning cartoons explain how we fix it.
Saturday Morning
I was a latchkey kid. My mother had one firm rule for weekends: Nobody wakes anybody up on Saturday morning.
So I’d come downstairs by myself, pour a bowl of Captain Crunch, and settle in front of the TV. For the next few hours, I’d watch cartoons while scraping the roof of my mouth raw with that rough cereal.
Between the cartoons were the toy commercials. So many toy commercials.
“Tell your parents about...”
“Ask your mom and dad for...”
In my house, this strategy didn’t work. Keith and Marian Ross were not easy targets. I was kid seven between them. Whatever I’d been convinced I desperately needed by Saturday morning television went exactly nowhere until holiday sales, and post-holiday sales because my birthday came a couple weeks after Christmas.
See, my parents weren’t getting money from Mattel, Hasbro, or whoever made Lincoln Logs. The toy companies had no leverage in the Ross house.
But not all parents held the line like the veterans in my house. We would all flock to the house that just scored Twister, or Jarts (lawn darts later banned for safety reasons), or a Slip-n-Slide that bruised us all summer long.
The toy companies understood something elegant: they didn’t need every parent to say yes. They just needed enough parents to say yes that all the kids ended up in those backyards anyway.
Fast Forward to Now
When I watch TV now, I see the same formula.
“Ask your doctor about...”
The medication for the soccer-playing turtles. The one for people in bathtubs on mountaintops. The drug for the coffee house patron whose current medication isn’t quite cutting it anymore and she needs more drugs to make the drugs work better.
On December 31, my insurance premiums will quadruple. I cannot afford it. I am losing coverage along with 4.8 million Americans.
If the subsidies are not extended, the only way millions of us will see our doctor next year is if something goes terribly wrong. Not to manage chronic conditions. Not to prevent problems before they start. Just to deal with whatever catastrophe lands us in an emergency room where we’re getting a bone set or dealing with whatever disaster couldn’t wait.
Who Paid for the Backyard
A few weeks ago, Good Trouble Western North Carolina tried to get meetings with their congressional representatives. Real people with real concerns about policies that directly affect whether they have healthcare next year.
They tried in North Carolina first. Doors stayed closed.
They got in cars and drove to Washington DC. Still couldn’t get in.
Pharmaceutical companies don’t have that problem. Last year alone, they spent $294 million on federal lobbying, more than any other industry. In the 2023-2024 election cycle, their PACs gave over $42 million to federal candidates. The average House member got $47,000. Senators got between $50,000 and $69,000 each.
Over the past twenty years, the pharmaceutical industry has spent $4.7 billion buying access to the rooms where decisions get made. That’s an average of $233 million per year. Every year. For two decades.
That’s not corruption, just unseemly. That’s the price of admission to the backyard where Congress plays.
On November 6, 2025, President Trump held an event in the Oval Office announcing a deal with pharmaceutical companies about obesity drug pricing. The room was packed. Eli Lilly executives standing behind the President’s desk. Novo Nordisk representatives right there in the room. Not just at the White House. In the Oval Office.
During the event, one of the pharmaceutical representatives collapsed. Everything stopped. The press corps got rushed out. Dr. Mehmet Oz, who runs Medicare and Medicaid, jumped in to help. People scrambled to lay the man down, elevate his feet, make sure he was breathing okay. The entire presidential event came to a complete halt for thirty minutes.
There’s video from that moment. Trump standing off to the side, hands in his pockets, while everyone else works to help the man on the floor.
When regular Americans show up asking to talk about healthcare policy that determines whether they’ll have insurance next year, security won’t let them past the lobby.
That’s what $4.7 billion buys.
The Leverage Nobody’s Using
Here’s what nobody’s talking about: pharmaceutical companies are about to lose 4.8 million customers. Not voters. Not constituents. Customers.
When those ACA subsidies expire, millions of us lose insurance. Without insurance, we’re not having those doctor visits where medications get prescribed. We’re not filling those prescriptions at the pharmacy. We’re becoming the people who wait until something goes terribly wrong and show up at the emergency room hoping we can figure out payment later.
That’s not just a healthcare crisis for us. That’s millions of customers disappearing from pharmaceutical company balance sheets.
And those pharmaceutical companies paid for access to Congress. They spent twenty years building relationships that guarantee when they need something, they get a hearing. When they walk into a room, people listen.
We can’t get meetings. But they can.
We don’t need to get in those rooms. We need the people who are already in those rooms to say what needs to be said.
Not because they care about us. Because losing millions of customers is catastrophically bad business.
Twelve Days to Take Action
We have twelve days until the enrollment deadline.
One message. Five companies. Every platform you have. Every single day.
Here’s the message. Copy it. Post it daily through December 15:
Share. Repost. Make Viral.
#Pfizer #EliLilly #Merck #JohnsonAndJohnson #AbbVieYou have the power to tell Congress: Extend the subsidies.
If you act, your company wins. Your shareholders win. Your patients win. Democracy wins.
Make health care happen.
#MakeHealthCareHappen #ProtectYourCustomers
Post it on Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads—anywhere you have social media. Post it today. Post it tomorrow. Post it every day until December 15.
Pharmaceutical companies can ignore one person. They cannot ignore thousands of people posting the same message every day across every platform their communications teams monitor. These posts show up in their daily reports. Their shareholders see them. Their board members see them. And it becomes harder to pretend they don’t know their customers are about to disappear.
We’re not attacking them. We’re showing them the path where everyone wins. Their companies keep customers. Their shareholders protect market value. Their patients keep healthcare. Democracy actually responds to human need.
The toy companies didn’t need every parent. They just needed enough that all the kids ended up in those backyards anyway.
Pharmaceutical companies spent $4.7 billion to get into Congress’s backyard. We’re their customers. They’re already in the room. They just need to look around and realize it’s about to be empty.
Copy the message.
Post it every day until December 15.
Make health care happen.
Democracy Spark provides ghostwriting for grassroots democracy organizations. You have the passion and vision, I have the words that move people to action. Let’s collaborate to bring our democracy back for the next generation.
Another brilliant post. Thank you!