By Karen Rubin, editor@news-photos-features.com, news-photos-features.com
After 10 years, Trump finally issued his “great” healthcare plan. It consists of 841 words that basically says: if you have money, deposit it in a Health Savings Account and pray you don’t get sick before you have amassed enough to cover the out-of-this-world hospital bill, cancer treatment, heart attack, brain surgery. Meanwhile, he and the Republicans, in order to give $1 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest, has effectively destroyed Obamacare – causing 22 million to find access to healthcare unaffordable, while young, healthy people tempt fate and drop insurance, which in turn, because the pool of healthy premium payers shrinks so dramatically, sending premiums skyrocketing for everyone else,. So far, 1.4 million fewer have enrolled in Obamacare because Republicans refused to renew the subsidies.
With RFK Jr.’s cynical and dangerous assault on vaccinations and dismantling of public health altogether, people will be sicker, weaker, more likely to transmit infectious disease, the vulnerable will simply die. RFK Jr’s canceling of research into new treatments and cures means those fighting cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and other illnesses will succumb; people unable to afford their insulin, chemotherapy or heart medicine will simply die or suffer lingering death. Heaven forbid another pandemic hit – Trump’s failures resulted in 600,000 needless deaths out of the 1 million who died (20% of the global deaths when USA, the richest country in the world has 5% of the population; when Biden came into office he immediately created a system for mass vaccination, saving 2 million lives).
With the cuts to Medicaid, hospitals are closing. With the bans on migration, there are shortages of doctors, nurses and healthcare providers. Access to obstetrics, to emergency rooms is gone.
With an EPA that has decided that corporate profits are more important than calculating how many lives will be cut short by polluted air, water, and food contaminated with chemicals, more people will get asthma, allergies, cancer.
With a government that has decided to end emissions standards and force coal and oil on utilities while canceling clean, renewable energy, the planet will continue to warm, climate disasters will worsen, sea level will rise and force people to leave coastal areas, destroy farmland and water supplies, there will be more wildfires, superstorms, droughts and floods, more heat stroke, more famine, more insect-borne disease.
So with Americans likely to be sicker and weaker, Trump’s answer is to make health insurance unaffordable and healthcare less available and accessible, where healthcare is a privilege, not a right. Survival of the fittest and richest.
It’s a dystopian world where one can imagine constant GoFundMe campaigns to raise money for critical surgery for a child. Perhaps even a new reality show that awards the winner with the cost of brain surgery.
At minimum, Congress should demand that the Affordable Care Act and the enhanced subsidies stay in place unless and until some new healthcare plan is not just presented, introduced, debated, but adopted. There should be dates for expiration and replacement to give people time to adjust – not this sudden “have it one day, don’t have healthcare the next.”
In fact, Americans are primed and in favor of some universal health care – a version of Medicare for All – which would save billions of dollars, cover everyone, simply by cutting out the obscenely profitable health insurance middlemen, who are obscenely profitable because they refuse care.
Let’s be reminded about what Obamacare did – and what Republicans have tried to repeal (and not replace) more than 80 times, doing now by sabotage what they couldn’t accomplish legislatively: it capped the amount that insurance companies could spend on marketing, administration and profit to 20%; it covered children on parents’ policy through age 26; it ended the higher premiums on “pre-existing conditions” (who doesn’t now, after COVID?) and on women just for the likelihood of having babies. Obamacare brought the obscenely high rate of uninsured to the lowest, 7.4% (half of what it had been), and covered a record 24 million in 2025 (50 million since its inception). That is all being lost.
But here’s what is at the heart of limiting health care: modern medicine has enabled people to live well into their 90s, meaning they live four decades on Social Security and Medicare. Modern medicine means that there is heart surgery, brain surgery, cancer treatment, transplants available to keep people alive decades longer than when they should have died.
But here’s what else Obamacare did: with a goal of making healthcare available to all, to prevent the “death panels” and the need to ration, the ACA began to shift the structure of our absurd for-profit healthcare and treatment structure to wellness and prevention. It is a lot cheaper to prevent illness (vaccinations!) or cure it before it becomes serious and debilitating while enabling people to be more productive and happy in their lives.
But you must consider the fact that the MAGA Republicans (as expressed through Stephen Miller, who is spearheading the campaign to reduce population by 100 million, starting with deporting or killing migrants) don’t want people to live past 75-80 years old (a growing number of Americans live past 75 – now 26 million) – where there are too few workers to support the retirees. They don’t want sickly babies or children being a burden on society. Lives are liabilities. They want to reduce the population to a more affordable 230 million. with 75 percent of the population of working age (16-64). Currently, 64% of Americans are working age. (There are 171 million are in the civilian labor force, the plan is to eliminate workers through AI and robots, end child labor laws, and impoverish people so they are forced to join the military).
314 Action Candidates Blast Trump Healthcare Plan
Today, 314 Action, an organization working to elect scientists and doctors to public office, held a virtual press conference following the release of Donald Trump’s “healthcare plan,” as millions of Americans face skyrocketing insurance premiums. 314 Action President and Founder Shaughnessy Naughton was joined by Democratic doctors running for Congress from coast to coast, including: Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Dr. Tina Shah (NJ-07), Dr. Matt Klein (MN-02), and Col. Dr. Darren McAuley (FL-15).
“After President Trump literally gave the middle finger to Americans earlier this week, yesterday, he metaphorically did with his one page plan for healthcare that could have been split out by ChatGPT,” said Naughton. “This Administration and Congress had the last year to do something to extend the Affordable Care Act credits that would allow people to continue to purchase health insurance to keep themselves and their families safe, and they failed to do that. And so here we are.”
The doctors warned that Trump’s proposal doesn’t provide any relief to American families, shared stories from the frontlines of their hospitals and offered real policy solutions to America’s healthcare crisis. Here are excerpts:
Dr. Tina Shah, candidate for New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District said, “What we're seeing is that cutting corners on health insurance might look like a way to save money to Trump and Congressional Republicans, but let me be clear, the way they save money is by letting people die. That's not leadership, that's negligence, and this is an urgent crisis, and my Republican Tom Kean Jr., he continues to look the other way while his constituents struggle.”
Trump, RFK Jr and Kean know their healthcare policies have made it harder and harder for people to get and to afford.
“Let me be clear, access to healthcare saves lives, and that access is under attack.”
Dr. Shah noted that Trump’s so-called “health care plan” is just a fact sheet.
“He's had a whole year, and his administration has come up with a two pager, and there's no actual legislation that extends the Affordable Care Act, premium tax credits, there's nothing that restricts insurance company greed or lowers drug costs.”
His “big idea” to give Americans their money back (presumably from the taxes they send) is a pittance compared to what hospital and healthcare costs. One day in a New Jersey hospital costs $3,400.
“What we are going to see the Trump administration give people is not even likely to cover one day in the hospital, nor any other things when you put in totality how much it costs to stay healthy, or, God forbid, if you're in a car accident and you need an emergency room visit and you get admitted to the hospital for one day or more. And I want to tell you, for our patients right now, we're not only worried about this, about what will happen in the future, but when we think about people now, they are not getting health insurance because it's too expensive on the exchange”
“I see patients every day who have enormously complex and expensive medical conditions,” said Dr. Matt Klein, candidate for Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District. “They may have had a liver transplant, they may have rheumatoid arthritis and they're maintained on biologic agents, or they have end stage renal disease, they need to know that they can plan their year. They'll be able to come into the hospital if necessary. They'll be able to see their specialist if necessary. Because they have coverage. They don't need a nebulous promise of possible cash in their pocket that would nowhere near cover the cost of their care.”
Dr. Klein added that Trump’s “great plan” comes at a time when the people he has put in charge of public health and health care are leading the assault on scientific truth and integrity – like repeating the false link between vaccines and autism, Tylenol and pregnancy and autism. “Vaccines are safe and Tylenol and pregnancy is safe, and it's important that we elect physicians so that we can stand up for that truth and reassure Americans and rebuild our CDC and our NIH and our NIH, so that Americans have reliable medical information that they can trust.”
As a legislator, Dr. Klein would extend the premium tax credits, but adds, “If Donald Trump really wants to bring down medication prices, why doesn't he let Medicare negotiate drug prices on all pharmaceuticals, as has been proposed by my senator, Amy Klobuchar [and President Biden who managed to get negotiated rates for up to 50 pharmaceuticals], and we need to reinvest in medical assistance and stop the trillion dollar cuts that are coming that will devastate patient care and our local economies across this state and across America.”
Colonel Dr. Darren McAuley, candidate for Florida’s 15th Congressional District, declared, “Being both arsonists and firemen, we've seen Republican leadership do everything that they can to destabilize the American healthcare system and for what? To find more money for permanent tax giveaways for the richest billionaires in history, so the richest people, not just in the country, but in the world, can buy another super yacht.”
He described what Trump and the Republicans have done as “a purposeful abdication of responsibility to take care of the basic needs of the American people. There's been an assault on the American health care system from the Medicaid cuts and the Medicare cuts of the one big, ugly bill to slashing the VA, which made it more difficult for veterans to receive quality care in a timely fashion. Now we're seeing this battle over whether or not ACA subsidies, something that we know works and something that the vast majority of American people support, should be continued.”
The destabilization of the healthcare system is resulting in an increase in premiums in employer-based care as well, forcing millions to also forgo care, or wipe out their funds they might otherwise use to pay for their child’s education.
“We're willing to take the security blanket and take away the health and safety net from average American citizens, from middle class American families, from people who are working hard to provide a future for their families and to take care of their elderly parents. It’s completely unacceptable, and when we put their feet to the fire, when we say that the American people notice what's happening, that they're afraid for their future and that they demand a change, we get this haphazard concepts of a plan, a two page memo, where one page literally says nothing other than the president's name, and the rest are concepts, ideas, some of which may be useful, but they're Still going to require implementation.
“The Democratic Party has been saying that price transparency is important in healthcare and healthcare provision for years. Now, all of a sudden, the Republicans recognize that they've caused an emergency. They're demanding price transparency, demanding that we lower the cost of drugs, and have a nonsensical idea of giving the American people a small pittance of what would be required to actually take care of their own health care actions are actually necessary in order to solve the problem, not just concepts and ideas, not just a one pager, this is going to take a full dynamic and a full response, not just from physicians and from physician extenders, from hospitals, but also from patient advocates and of course, of course, from representatives in the United States government.
“What we've seen today, what we've seen yesterday, and what we're discussing today, demonstrates that the Republican Party is still not taking this seriously. They're still not taking what they've done to the American people's health care system seriously, because these are not serious ideas that are not actually set to solve the problem.
“I'm running in CD 15 in Central Florida, where we find that health care costs and their skyrocketing impact on people's bottom lines is just one piece of the puzzle for why people can't afford to live comfortably anymore. They can't afford to go to the grocery store, they can't afford to pay their mortgages and their rents, and they can downsize where they live. They can sometimes buy less food. But we all know that if you live long enough, eventually something may happen and you're going to require medical care. No one can avoid or escape needing medical care. No one wants to live knowing that their children or that their parents may not have medical care. So we need to frame this conversation as a true necessity and fight for the American people. Thank you. 314 Action for having me. I'm filled with joy to hear the other physicians here that are willing to lean in on this issue and make sure that their opinions and their experiences are heard. And thank you very much to the press for coming. I'll pass it along now as well.”
Dr. Richard Pan, candidate for California’s 6th Congressional District said, “As a doctor, we also know when patients are in front of you and they're bleeding out, you got to first stop the bleeding, right? You don't let the patient die while you're trying to figure out, Oh, what are we going to do next? And what we do know is what we have in the tax credits for the ACA and in Medicaid, the very programs being cut by Donald Trump in this Republican administration, is something that ensured that millions more people got healthcare than what's going to happen right now.
“Yet we have a president and a Republican Congress, Donald Trump, who is not taking health care seriously, in fact, is treating it as something that is unimportant and negligible...The average diabetic spends approximately $20,000 a year for their medical care, so if they can't have insurance, how are they supposed to give a couple $1,000 to pay for what's going to cost them $20,000 a year?
“Those details matter and we need to be sure we have serious people proposing serious plans, to be sure that people actually can get the care that they need. So they can not only be healthy, but frankly, even survive... people need to have insurance. Because unfortunately, if you need health care, you need to be sure you have the resources to cover it, and that's why we, under Obamacare, we actually ensure people get health insurance.”
The first step is to restore the Obamacare tax credits, eliminate the Medicaid cuts in HR-1 and the additional bureaucracy the Republicans put into Medicaid to make it harder for people to get enrolled. “And then let's have a discussion, or serious discussion about if there are other alternatives.”
Read the transcript and watch the full press conference
See: FACT SHEET: WHAT’S IN TRUMP’S ‘GREAT HEALTHCARE PLAN’
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