Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (center)

I’m just sick.

Of all the horrible parts of the GOP’s horrible bill to cut taxes on the wealthy and raise them on the middle class, the worst is the fact that it'll end cancer treatment for Medicare patients.

That’s no exaggeration, hyperbole, or partisan spin. It’s just a plain fact. Because this bill will blow a $1.5 trillion hole in the deficit, it will also trigger an automatic $25 billion annual cut to Medicare, under a savage austerity scheme known as the "sequester.” And because of the unusual way Medicare covers chemotherapy drugs—which are very expensive—cancer patients are going to be uniquely burdened by these cuts.

It’s also not in any way hypothetical, because it happened once before, back in 2013. This is how the headlines read at the time:

Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester.

These cuts were never reversed, and they’ve had a devastating impact on cancer care. And with a fresh round of cuts, we’re going to see this happen again, meaning the most vulnerable among us are going to be forced to go without life-saving treatments.

In other words, they're going to die.

We may not be able to stop this abomination from passing the Senate and becoming law, but we sure as hell can raise hell about it. Call your senators, tell your friends, whatever you do: Don’t stop talking about this crime.

But whatever you do, you should also make Republicans pay for what they’ve done. Taking back the Senate next year is a real long-shot, but it’s not impossible, and it’s our moral obligation to create the biggest possible firestorm and wield it to dismantle the GOP's hold on Congress. Only then will we have any hope of reversing this horrific damage and making sure cancer patients can get the care they need.

So please give $1 to help us win the most vulnerable Republican seats in the Senate, starting with Alabama on Dec. 12.