On Capitol Hill, Senate Finance Committee negotiators say they’ve reduced the cost of a healthcare reform bill to $1 trillion. A large segment of the cuts would come from reducing federal subsidies for the uninsured. The current Finance Committee plan also proposes what the Washington Post calls “substantial reductions in future spending on Medicare and Medicaid” — the main federal programs for elderly and low-income Americans. As negotiations continued, thousands of healthcare activists came to Washington Thursday for a day of action organized by Health Care for America Now. Among those to address the rally were New York Senator Charles Schumer and the actor Edie Falco, best known for starring on the HBO series The Sopranos. Also speaking was New York healthcare worker Togba Porte.

Togba Porte: “Any country as good as the United States of America should be able to have affordable healthcare for all of its citizens. When 41 million people do not have the right to healthcare, it’s a travesty, it’s an injustice, it’s unfair.”

Health Care for America Now organized the event in part to support President Obama’s call for the establishment of a government-run public health option. Earlier this week, Obama signaled he’d be willing to drop the proposal if it fails to gain enough bipartisan support.