President Donald Trump on Tuesday proclaimed he would not sign any fix to the nation’s healthcare crisis that would send money to what he termed, in all capital letters, as the “BIG, FAT, RICH INSURANCE COMPANIES, WHO HAVE MADE $TRILLIONS, AND RIPPED OFF AMERICA LONG ENOUGH”—and progressives did not hesitate to point out that by taking for-profit, private insurers out of the healthcare equation, one would quickly—if they cared about covering more people with less money—be left with something more akin to the kind of universal, publicly-supported healthcare systems that most nations in the developed world already enjoy.
“Just wait until we tell you about Medicare for All,” said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for the US Senate in Michigan, in response to Trump’s Truth Social post.
The president has been openly railing against the insurance companies that benefit from federal subsidies that are central to the healthcare plans made available on exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but his solution—a nebulous call for direct payments to individuals who could then somehow purchase “THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER INSURANCE” with those same federal dollars.
With significant cuts to Medicaid—the largest in the program’s history—and an end to ACA subsidies that could see premiums double or more for over 20 million people in the coming year, Democrats are warning of a healthcare crisis in 2026 like nothing the nation has ever seen.
But the solution being offered by Trump and his GOP allies in Congress, according to progressive critics, would only further entrench the crisis.
“Trump’s ‘healthcare’ plan will bankrupt and kill millions of Americans,” warned Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, a single-payer advocacy group. “We can eliminate the private insurance industry, and save $650 billion per year with Medicare for All—which would cover everyone, save families money, and include dental, vision, prescriptions, and long-term care.”
On Sunday, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), went on “Face the Nation” in order to put some “meat on the bone” regarding direct payments and said his office was working closely with Trump’s White House on the proposal.
Essentially, what the Cassidy-Trump plan would do is replace federal subsidies for inadequate health plans with high deductibles from private insurance giants with federal cash payments that people could only use to purchase—wait for it—inadequate health plans with high deductibles from private insurance giants.
After Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Dr. Mehmet Oz, also on Sunday, played a similar card on behalf of the Trump administration by saying, “If you had a check in the mail, you could buy the insurance you thought was best for you,” immediate pushback followed.
Warren Gunnels, a longtime policy advisor to Sanders in the Senate, was among those who slammed Oz’s efforts to deceive the American people by pushing the Trump administration’s direct payments.
“If we had Medicare for All, everyone would have healthcare with no premiums, deductibles, or co-payments, and we’d save $650 billion and 68,000 lives a year,” said Gunnels in response to Oz’s remarks. “If we gave cancer patients, at most, a check for $6,500 for a $150,000 treatment, they’d go bankrupt and die an early death.”
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
