Attending the State of the Union Address last month as Congresswoman Gwen Moore’s guest was, in a word, surreal.

As a child care provider and small business leader in Wisconsin, I spend my days thinking about how rising costs affect my staff and the families whose children we care for. I never imagined I would one day sit in the Capitol for an address like this.

Watching at home does not capture the scale of it: the formality, the history, the gravity of the room.

Last year, for the first time in my life, I began speaking publicly about health care affordability. For years, I relied on Affordable Care Act enhanced tax credits to afford my own coverage. When those credits expired, I watched members of my team face impossible decisions: pay dramatically higher premiums or go without health insurance altogether. That is not an abstract policy debate for us; it is a real and immediate stressor.

Congresswoman Moore invited me to share those experiences. She  and I had many conversations about the realities facing working families, including how the expiration of those tax credits is affecting millions of Americans, particularly the educators and families I see every day. We talked about the pressure of rising rent, utilities, groceries, child care and other costs, and how health care is increasingly becoming the expense that pushes families over the edge.

So when I took my seat in the Capitol, surrounded by university presidents, members of the military and leaders from across the country, I listened carefully.

I hoped to hear a serious plan to address health care costs.

Instead, health care received only brief mention in what I later learned was the longest State of the Union address in American history.

The President spoke about a “golden age” and a booming economy. But for whom? And in what parts of the country?

That’s not the reality I see.

Certainly not in the everyday lives of the people who form the foundation of our workforce: the teachers, farmers, caregivers, service workers and small business owners I interact with every day.

A golden era for a select few does not make a golden era for a country.

Not for teachers standing in classrooms.

Not for farmers working their fields.

Not for the caregivers, service workers and small business owners whose work sustains our communities.

They are the threads in the quilt that holds this country together. When policies ignore their struggles or make basic necessities like health care more expensive, those threads begin to fray.

Nearly 44% of U.S. adults say it is difficult to afford health care right now. Premiums have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled for millions of families following the expiration of enhanced ACA tax credits, a policy decision now affecting nearly 22 million Americans.

More than one million Americans have already dropped coverage, including more than 20,000  Wisconsinites.

We all know there are people behind those numbers.

They are assistant teachers deciding whether they can risk going uninsured. They are kitchen staff weighing premiums against rent. They are parents of toddlers delaying doctors’ appointments because another bill is already overdue.

In child care, those decisions ripple far beyond a single household. When educators cannot afford health care, they leave the field, and when they leave, classrooms close and parents lose the care they rely on to go to work. In that way, health care affordability is not just a personal issue; it is a workforce issue and an economic issue for the entire country.

At the same time, proposed cuts of more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act are putting enormous pressure on the health care system itself. Across the country, over 750 hospitals, maternity wards and nursing homes are facing service cuts or closure because of these changes.

Every closure, every service reduction and every essential worker lost means higher costs, longer delays for care and greater risk for families.

None of that made it into the speech.

Meanwhile, billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $1 trillion, and pharmaceutical companies reported more than $130 billion in profits last year alone.

But the working families I know are making impossible trade-offs.

I attended the State of the Union hoping to hear that relief was coming —  that health care affordability would be treated as the urgent economic issue it is for my family, the families we serve at the daycare and for all working families.

Instead, I heard a version of the economy that does not match the reality I see every day.

In our corner of America, parents are postponing appointments. Employees are calculating whether they can risk going uninsured. Small business owners are wondering how long they can keep absorbing rising costs.

Being present in the Capitol did not change that reality.

Because for those of us entrusted with caring for children and for the families who rely on us, health care affordability is not a political talking point.

It is basic survival.

And Americans do not need to be told that we are living in a golden era.

We need to feel it.

That means passing legislation, making real investments, and taking meaningful action that improves the daily lives of the people who hold this country together. It means proving, not just promising, that the American people are worth investing in.

Because a truly golden era is not measured in stock market gains or applause in a chamber.

It is measured in whether everyday families can afford to live, work and care for one another with dignity.