Justice ReDesigned Podcast

NOTE: This essay is Part 1 of a three-part series examining the human toll of the Big Beautiful Bill — a law that manages to be equal parts cruel, cynical, and unnecessary.

In this first installment, I focus on the bill’s brutal cuts to Medicaid: a decision that will strip health care from millions, condemn tens of thousands to early graves, and shatter families — all so that the wealthiest Americans can gild their yachts and expand their champagne cellars.

If that does not unsettle you, I invite you to read Part 2, which explores another devastating consequence: the bill’s deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which will pull food from the mouths of children and force more families into hunger.

Together, these two essays examine a singular and sobering truth: our leaders have chosen to sacrifice the health and dignity of the many to indulge the appetites of the few.

If justice means anything, it demands we call this what it is — and refuse to look away.

How dare they.

Last week, Congress and President Trump signed what they call the “Big Beautiful Bill” — a law that slashes Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. They did this knowing full well what it means: people will die. Not a few. Not hypothetically. Tens of thousands of Americans — real, breathing people — will lose their lives so the richest 0.1% can get even richer.

Image generated by AI with reference input provided by the author using the prompt, ‘Create an image that depicts a ‘A pair of hands, elderly, frail, and clutching a hospital discharge form stamped “Denied” or “Uncovered”,’ Created by ChatGPT (Open AI), July 2025.

Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, estimates over 100,000 preventable deaths over the next decade as more than 11 million people are shoved off Medicaid like unwanted cargo. Others will be left stranded without home health aides, dumped out of hospitals with nothing but a cab voucher and a prayer, forced to choose between medicine and food, between life and despair.

And for what?

If this were a sacrifice that brought us some transcendent good — if it saved our democracy, defeated some existential threat, healed the earth — maybe the dead could at least be honored for giving their lives to something bigger than themselves.

But that is not what this is.

And let’s not pretend this is some disinterested act of statesmanship. This bill personally enriches the very man who signed it. Donald Trump — a self-proclaimed billionaire with sprawling real estate holdings, shell companies, and a family dynasty waiting to inherit his fortune — stands to pocket millions from the very tax cuts he delivered at the expense of the poor and the sick. He is not sacrificing for the greater good. He is looting the treasury while telling us to clap.

The wealthiest families in America, those in the top 0.1%, will each receive, on average, over $1 million in tax breaks over the next decade. Trump and his family are at the very center of that rarified elite. Every dollar stripped from Medicaid — every ride to dialysis denied, every home health aide fired, every coffin nailed shut too soon — is a dollar that helps finance another yacht, another golf course, another golden trinket for the already-rich, including the president himself. This is not governance. This is plunder.

There is no serious economic or moral case that America needs to starve its poor and sick to fatten its billionaires. Even the hospitals will suffer — closing doors, raising costs on everyone else. Rural communities will become health-care deserts. Whole families will collapse under the weight of caregiving with no support. This is not just cruel. It’s stupid — as stupid as cutting the brakes to save gas money while driving full-speed toward a cliff.

Image generated by AI with reference input provided by the author using the prompt, ‘Create an image that depicts a ‘Rural hospital under a stormy sky, with a sign reading “Closed” or “For Sale”, while people wait outside.,’ Created by ChatGPT (Open AI), July 2025.

And — of course — there’s always a chorus of armchair experts ready to climb aboard the misinformation train, insisting — without a shred of evidence — that Medicaid is just a bloated swamp of fraud and freeloaders. These are the folks who’ve never let facts derail their righteous indignation. But study after study shows that Medicaid not only provides vital care — it saves lives. A major study led by Dartmouth College, found that states that expanded Medicaid saw death rates fall by about 3%, with even greater benefits in the poorest counties. That’s thousands of lives saved every year — while cutting it would cost lives. Meanwhile, the much-ballyhooed “fraud” is a rounding error: Government Accountability Office audits find that fraud accounts for only a tiny fraction of Medicaid spending — far lower than the administrative waste and profiteering in private insurance. The overwhelming majority of Medicaid beneficiaries are children, pregnant women, seniors, and people with disabilities — the very people who most deserve our care. Pretending they are undeserving, or that Medicaid is squandered on fraud, is like blaming the fire department for being too busy putting out fires. It’s a lie designed to justify cruelty and greed.

And when the “fraud and waste” fairy tale starts to fall apart, they switch tracks to an even more magical notion: that states, with their limitless budgets and boundless goodwill, will simply pick up the slack without breaking a sweat.

Some defenders of this bill, including members of Congress, have shrugged off the devastation by claiming that states can simply “fill the gap” left by federal Medicaid and SNAP cuts. That sounds nice in a press release — but it’s nonsense in reality. States can’t print money, and nearly all are required to balance their budgets every year. If they want to replace lost federal funding, they must either raise taxes, cut other essential services, or both — none of which is easy, popular, or guaranteed. And not every state even wants to help. We already see how some states refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving millions without coverage. This bill would deepen that injustice, creating a cruel patchwork where your access to food and health care depends entirely on which side of a state line you live on. Poor states with already frayed budgets will be forced to let their residents sink, while wealthier states struggle — and still fall short — to cover the difference. Punting responsibility to the states isn’t a solution. It’s a cop-out dressed up as federalism, and it will leave the most vulnerable twisting in the wind.

And make no mistake: Congress knows all this. That is why they buried the most devastating cuts until after the 2026 midterms, like a snake coiling out of sight, waiting to strike. They know the pain is coming, and they want to keep their jobs long enough to avoid accountability. They’re gambling that by the time voters feel the knife in their backs, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.

How dare they.

We elect leaders to protect us, to serve the common good. What kind of leader knowingly votes to kill his own constituents to make a tiny number of people richer — including himself?

What kind of country allows that?

We should not let them hide behind jargon about “budget discipline” and “work requirements.” We know the truth: this is not about work or discipline. It is about power. It is about greed.

We cannot quietly accept this. Not when our neighbors are being pushed into their graves to fund another tax cut for people who already have everything. Not when the lives of the elderly, the disabled, the poor — and yes, maybe even us someday — are treated as disposable.

Every member of Congress who voted for this should have to look each of those 100,000 doomed Americans in the eye and explain why their lives were worth so little.

But they won’t. Because they know there is no justification.

And that is why we must speak. Loudly. Relentlessly. Until this law is reversed, until no more lives are fed to the sharks of greed.

How dare they.

How dare we let them.

Steven Teske is an attorney and retired judge. He has testified before Congress on four occasions and numerous state legislatures on law and policy reform. He received his Juris Doctor and Masters in political science degrees from Georgia State University in Atlanta. He has been appointed by governors to several state boards, and is a former adjunct law professor and currently is an adjunct professor in criminal justice studies. He has published extensively on law and policy reform.

Justice is not a mood. It is not a gust of wind that shifts with public opinion. It is not a cudgel to be wielded against those we dislike. And it is certainly not whatever the loudest voice or the most powerful leader says it is. Justice—true justice—is the bedrock of a democratic republic. It is a compass, not a weapon. A principle and a process, both of which must be honored if we are to remain a nation governed by law, not by impulse.

If this sounds lofty, it is. The framers of the Constitution set the bar high, like architects designing a cathedral meant to outlast generations. They built a structure that demands more of us than vengeance. They wrote a Constitution that begins not with power but with purpose: "to establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty." The order matters. Justice is first. Without it, the rest is a house without a foundation.

So what is justice? Justice is the application of law with fairness, impartiality, and integrity. It is rooted in the principle that all people—yes, all people—deserve due process, no matter who they are or what they are accused of doing. That includes citizens and non-citizens alike. It includes those who obey the law and those who violate it. Justice does not discriminate, because the moment it does, it becomes something else: oppression dressed in the robes of legitimacy.

It is troubling, then, to watch the current administration bend and break the boundaries of justice under the guise of public safety. The use of inflammatory rhetoric to describe entire groups of people—such as undocumented migrants—as criminals and threats is not only inaccurate, it is dangerous. There is no justice in fearmongering. There is only fear, spreading like wildfire through a dry forest of ignorance.

This does not mean we should ignore horrific crimes. The tragic murder of Laken Riley was horrendous and heartbreaking. It deserves national mourning and accountability. But to seize on one family’s profound loss and exploit it to justify sweeping generalizations—suggesting that such crimes are common among undocumented migrants when all credible data shows otherwise—is disingenuous to the truth and deeply disrespectful to the Riley family. Using her name to perpetuate a false narrative may win applause at a rally, but it desecrates the principle of justice and turns personal tragedy into political currency.

Let us be clear: I am not suggesting that the administration abandon its lawful authority to enforce immigration laws. Undocumented entry into the United States is a civil violation, and removal proceedings are authorized under federal law. But justice is not simply about what the law permits—it is about how we exercise that power. Arresting individuals without due process, bypassing hearings required by immigration statutes, and instead putting them on an airplane and shipping—not deporting, but shipping—them like cargo to a foreign prison where they may languish indefinitely without charges or recourse, is not immigration enforcement. It is extrajudicial punishment. It is exile without trial. In the plainest moral terms, it is not deportation—it is kidnapping with a government seal.

Let us also be clear: the data does not support the narrative that undocumented migrants are a threat to public safety. In fact, study after study confirms that they are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens. But facts rarely survive in the furnace of political manipulation. Instead, we are fed the embers of suspicion—told that our safety requires the erosion of due process, that swift and severe action is preferable to lawful procedure. It is a false choice dressed up as necessity.

Public safety and due process are not enemies. One protects our bodies, the other protects our soul as a nation. Sacrificing one for the other is like extinguishing a fire with gasoline—it only ensures the blaze will return, fiercer and less controllable.

In 1838, a young Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, warning that the greatest threat to the republic would not come from a foreign power, but from within—from the lawless spirit of mob rule and the erosion of respect for the rule of law. “As a nation of freemen,” he said, “we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” His words feel hauntingly prescient today, like a lighthouse flashing in a storm we chose not to see coming.

When the executive branch promotes policies or rhetoric that diminish the dignity of others under the banner of safety, we must ask: Is this just? When due process is circumvented because it is inconvenient, we must ask: Is this justice? When government officials use generalized accusations to inflame public sentiment against vulnerable populations, we must ask: Who benefits, and at what cost?

Justice ReDesigned is a space born from that line of questioning. This site will explore the many ways our systems—criminal, civil, immigration, child welfare, public health—succeed or fail at delivering justice. It will challenge those in power when they trade principle for popularity or fear. And it will advocate for a return to a definition of justice that demands fairness, not just punishment; truth, not just narrative.

You do not have to agree with every policy decision to believe in due process. You do not have to welcome every immigrant to believe in their humanity. You only have to believe that justice—real justice—is not ours to bend at will. It must remain a constant, like a North Star that guides us through even the darkest political nights.

Because if justice only applies to those we like or agree with, it is not justice at all. It is favoritism with a badge. It is the rule of men (and women), not the rule of law.

The future of our democracy depends on our willingness to defend justice, not just in theory, but in practice. Even—especially—when it’s hard. Because when we abandon it, we don’t just lose a value—we lose ourselves.