San José Spotlight’s recent coverage of potential health care closures in Santa Clara County should be a wake-up call.

When hospitals like Hazel Hawkins close in rural communities like Hollister, the impact doesn’t stay contained. Patients are forced to travel farther, emergency rooms like St. Louise Regional in Gilroy become overcrowded and patient care suffers.

Here in Santa Clara County, we’re already seeing how fragile our health care system is. Federal budget cuts are threatening critical funding hospitals rely on to keep emergency departments staffed and lifesaving services available. When that support disappears, hospitals are forced to make impossible decisions like cutting services, reducing staff or in the worst cases, closing their doors forever.

For patients, that can mean longer waits in the ER, delayed care and fewer options when every second matters.

The solution is a common sense, one-time tax on billionaires. The ultra-wealthy have seen their fortunes grow enormously in recent years, even as our hospitals struggle to stay open. Asking those who have benefited the most from our economy to contribute a small share to keep hospitals and emergency rooms operating is necessary. And considering the cuts to health care from H.R. 1 came from the bill’s tax cuts for billionaires, it’s a reasonable ask.

As a health care worker, I know what happens when resources run thin. We see the fear in patients’ faces when care is delayed and the exhaustion in staff who are stretched beyond their limits.

Hospital closures aren’t abstract policy debates — they are life-and-death issues for our community. If we want to prevent more closures and protect patient care, we need solutions now.

At only 5%, the billionaire tax is a far smaller contribution than what average Santa Clara County residents have deducted out of each paycheck — and would only apply to wealth that would otherwise go untaxed.

We can do this. This election, let’s vote for the billionaire tax to keep hospitals open and ensure when families in Santa Clara County need care, it will still be there.

Elcy Alvarado is a medical assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara.