All posts tagged "medicaid"

The GOP is keeping Americans on the hook — even if the shutdown ends

As New Mexicans, we know what it means to take care of each other. When our neighbors are struggling, we help them.

That’s why our state leaders stepped in to make sure families could still get food during the appalling and unprecedented suspension of SNAP food benefits. And that’s why the Trump administration’s choice to block SNAP during a government shutdown, despite having the emergency funds, struck such a deep nerve — it’s not just cruel, it’s unnecessary.

When the shutdown ends, many federal workers and families will finally get some relief. But that relief won’t last long. The truth is: even after the government reopens, the cuts to food and healthcare programs will keep coming, and they are about to get worse.

Buried in the details of H.R. 1 — the federal budget bill pushed by House Republicans — are huge cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and marketplace health insurance. These cuts will hurt hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans, ripping away support that keeps our families stable and healthy. These are not temporary disruptions caused by a funding gap — these are long-term structural changes designed to take away food and healthcare from our families.

New Mexico’s federal lawmakers aren’t staying quiet. Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, along with Representatives Melanie Stansbury, Teresa Leger Fernández, and Gabe Vasquez, are fighting to protect food assistance and healthcare, and rural clinics that are lifelines in our communities.

In New Mexico, we’ve seen what works. When families have access to healthy food, health care, and stable housing, our whole state is stronger. We’ve made progress in recent years: expanding child hunger programs, improving access to affordable healthcare, and creating state initiatives that keep working parents on their feet. That progress is now under direct threat from Washington DC.

As our lawmakers prepare for the upcoming 30 day legislative session, protecting that progress must come first. Lawmakers must continue the important work that began in October’s special session: building state-level solutions to shield New Mexico families from the harshest effects of H.R. 1’s cuts. That means investing in our state food assistance programs, protecting healthcare coverage, making sure rural hospitals and clinics are funded, and ensuring no child in New Mexico goes hungry.

We don’t have to accept a future where federal politics decide who in our communities eats, who gets medical care, or who is left behind. The values that define New Mexico — community, resilience, and compassion — are stronger than any budget cut.

The shutdown will end. But our responsibility to one another will not.

Sovereign Hager is from Albuquerque, NM and is the Public Benefits director at New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.
Source NM is part of the States Newsroom network

It's not the Dems who must feel real pain if this shutdown is ever to end

One of the main assumptions in the story about the government shutdown, which began at midnight, is that the Democrats see a “rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve policy goals.”

That quote is from the Associated Press. Here’s some more: “Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for [the Republican funding resolution] unless Republicans include an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands. President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans say they won’t negotiate, arguing that it’s a stripped-down, ‘clean’ bill that should be noncontroversial.”

I wonder about that, though.

I mean, I know the Democrats have to demand something concrete in exchange for their vote, but the opportunity seems bigger than just getting the GOP to renew Obamacare subsidies that were expanded during the covid pandemic. The opportunity seems bigger than policy.

It seems like a chance to expose the Republicans’ lies.

Then ask why. Why do they lie so much?

Then answer: because Republican voters can’t know the truth.

The truth is that Trump and his party do not care one way or another if, in the coming months, health insurance premiums for those who are enrolled in Obamacare exchanges double, triple or quadruple.

They do not care if everyone else enrolled through their employers sees their insurance premiums spike, or sees the cost of their health care spike, as a result of healthy people leaving Obamacare exchanges.

What they do care about is stealing from Medicaid — to the tune of $1 trillion over a decade — to cut the taxes of very obscenely rich people who will never notice that their taxes have been cut. Oh, and they care about seeing their social inferiors suffer. That’s a whole lot of fun.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with not caring. It is part of the makeup of a native-born authoritarian cartel that’s invested above all else in maintaining a social hierarchy with rich white men on top.

Though rule-by-the-rich is very popular among the rich, it’s not so popular among workaday folks, even conservative Americans who otherwise see advantage in being aligned with their social betters.

Though the Trump cartel is working hard to change it, America is still a democracy. The GOP still needs its base until it has completed its consolidation of power. For now, it can’t afford to alienate its supporters with the truth – that the Republicans are scamming them.

Who will suffer most from cuts to Medicaid? Republican voters in GOP-controlled states. Who will suffer most from Obamacare spikes? Ditto. Because, in both programs, there are more Republican voters than anyone else combined, the Republicans must pretend to care.

But mostly, they lie.

At first, the lies were of the “waste, fraud and abuse” variety.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) said he might think about renewing the Obamacare subsidies, but “there is a lot of, whatever you want to call it, fraud,” he told Axios. “And I think everybody acknowledges that, so how do you reform it and still get bipartisan support?"

Also per Axios, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said they’re thinking about requiring “ACA enrollees to have ‘skin in the game’ by making them pay a minimum premium and barring zero-premium plans that are ACA-compliant but that critics contend fuel fraud.”

Yes, they contend it’s fraud. It isn’t, though. Those are just the rules. If you don’t like the rules, get enough support to change them. But that’s the thing. Americans like the rules, as they are. So Republicans lie.

“Waste, fraud and abuse” was always a code for “Obamacare is for Black people,” so no Republican feared opposing it. But apparently the dogwhistle wasn’t getting through to the base. So the Republicans dropped the coded language to say outright that the Democrats want one and a half trillion dollars to give “illegal aliens” free health care.

Here’s Vice President JD Vance:

Democrats are “saying to the American people that [they] wanna give massive amounts of money, hundreds of billions of dollars to illegal aliens for their health care, while Americans are struggling to pay their health care bills. That was their initial foray into this negotiation. We thought it was absurd. We told them it was. Now they come in here saying that if you don’t give us everything that we want, we’re gonna shut down the government.”

Every word Vance said, including “and” and “the,” is a lie.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) went straight at him for that lie:

“The federal government by law … does not fund health insurance for undocumented immigrants in Medicaid, period. Nor the ACA, nor Medicare. Undocumented immigrants do not get federal health insurance premiums. Period. Period. They’re lying.”

Let’s be real. There is no reality in which Republican voters suddenly wake up to the truth of Schumer’s words and as a result, admit to themselves that the Trump cartel has been lying to them all along. That’s because lying, no matter how disgusting, is not the worst part of the predicament America finds itself in. The desire to believe lies is.

So the goal wouldn’t be convincing Republican voters they’ve been lied to. The goal would be convincing they’ve been scammed. To do that, however, requires much more than merely calling Republicans out as liars. It requires pain — pain felt by Republican voters themselves.

That’s what Republican voters will feel if Trump and the Republicans get what they want from the Democrats: a “clean CR” that includes nothing to stop the shock that’s coming, when health insurance premiums skyrocket while the safety net unravels. Pain is the only teacher in politics. That’s the Democrats’ real opportunity.

Not policy.

Pain.

These forgotten Americans hold the key to Trump's downfall — and they'll use it soon

Even at the absolute highest level, at some point, just getting the basic job done — sawing wood, blocking and tackling — is the only means to sway critical elements of the American electorate toward support or disdain for this or most other administrations.

For that reason, and precious few others, it is only a matter of time until the floor drops out from under Trump's MAGA express and its adolescent scorched-earth second run.

Such a low-key, mealy-mouthed pronouncement kind of sounds absurd at first.

After all, at any given point, 35 percent of this country is in a cold civil war with the opposite 35 percent. The red side of that equation believes that Trump's Department of Justice is about to deliver Obama and Hillary's Q-inspired imprisonment, all while they cheer the deployment of troops to Portland. Probably Portland, Maine, given this administration's incompetence.

Meanwhile, many of us on the blue side believe we're a day or two away from Trump passing out on the podium as the Epstein files prove that he played a major role in the most notorious teen sex-trafficking scheme in modern history. (And don't think that he doesn't love the government shutdown as a diversion.)

The reality is likely more in the middle — though that's one hell of a middle, to be sure.

Real hope for moderating or deflating Trump and company will likely spring more from that middle 30 percent, the kind that don't believe that pitchforks are warranted yet, so long as someone answers the damned phone when they call Social Security, gets their tax rebate before Memorial Day, wants FEMA positioned before the storm, and prefers hamburger that is at least cheaper than Bitcoin.

Because Trump et. al. can implement Project 2025 in all its horror, putting troops in American cities, deporting actual American citizens, firing women and POC as presumptive "DEI hires," all of it, with the 35-35 dynamic and a "thirtyish" middle that is practically asleep, just wanting American s––– to work.

To deal with an obvious issue, no, that middle should not be forgiven for being asleep at the wheel as Trump steals American democracy, but that's a topic for another day.

There is reason to believe, however, that the middle is about to lose its precarious tolerance of Trump as his regime continues its nosedive into banana republic despot despair.

First and foremost, there is the fact that no one can afford anything, whether it is groceries, a house, Amazon Prime, never mind health insurance. Trump is in the White House based on one issue — inflation, and not only has he failed spectacularly to bring it down, but there is every indication that it will only get worse. Prices alone will move that middle to disapproval faster than nearly any other factor.

But now watch what happens when air traffic control, or the lack thereof, makes Thanksgiving and next summer an utter nightmare. Yes, that's a "First World Problem" but we are or were "the First World," and very easily angered when such entitlements are threatened.

We got damned lucky this hurricane season. FEMA got "DOGE'd" but wasn't tested in August or September, and good thing too: We could have had a disaster on top of a disaster. But just because the trade winds favored us doesn't mean that a major upheaval, such as an earthquake, fire, or next year's hurricane season, won't expose the breathtaking incompetence we know to be in place.

There is a darker side, too. As the Trump administration fully politicizes the FBI, pulling agents into political conflicts and away from international attacks, all under the leadership of a former podcaster, we are terrifyingly more exposed to terrorist attacks, whether of the old variety, such as bombs, or the newer threats to our networks and grids. The political folly of the FBI, replacing so many honed-in apolitical veterans, can and likely will be exposed in something where minutes matter. It is more likely than not.

And then there is the relatively easy stuff that is already souring, as mentioned: Social Security calls going unanswered, VA appointments dropping off, SNAP dissolving, and Medicaid cuts closing hospitals, all of that toll takes only time — and the administration has lots of it remaining.

It is really easy to spend an hour on X and fully believe that the United States is about to start the Civil War 2.0 — and, no doubt, our democracy is being burgled by the hour, the post-Constitutional America may well be "here." But the administration still has to fear that middle because in this hyper-polarized climate, it takes only a good 15 percent sway in the electorate and very suddenly the administration has little room to move without serious risk.

There is a major, major difference in the authoritarian battlefield between a presidential approval rate of 45 percent versus a true 35 percent, and as has been written here before, Trump has never had to defend his "burn it all down" approach in a souring economy — never mind a wholly dysfunctional government.

This is not a call to sit back and wait. No. The dangers are present and clear, the agenda is damned dangerous, and its implementation is now weekly. Stand and resist, spread the word, don't give an inch, all that. But do not scroll the phone thinking that we're one big revelation away from MAGA implosion.

If we have learned one thing in the Trump era, it is that scandal doesn't touch him ... unless the economy sucks, the phones go unanswered, and a real bomb drops. He has never faced a major revelation with an angry middle.

It is coming. The incompetence can only remain hidden for so long. Just don't count on overwhelming shock about any one revelation, until such time as the middle gets miffed.

At some point, competence matters. The federal government, whether it is TSA, Social Security, the FBI, or FEMA, has actually "worked" fairly well, going back a generation. We have had legions of politically agnostic civil servants earn the expectation that they can be counted on. But most of them are gone, perhaps primarily because they kept politics out of the office, all to usher in just a few "true believers."

And their absence is about to be felt, month by intolerable month.

The somewhat perverted "good news" is that it is coming, and as the middle turns against Trumpism, some of his worst plans will be abated. The bad news is that it cannot come soon enough, and questions linger over whether there will be much left worth saving.

Fight now. Resist today. And know that replacements are coming. Whether they can be forgiven for waiting until abject incompetence set in is a question for history.

But it most certainly is coming — this administration has shown that it cannot be counted on to answer the phone, blocking and tackling, and that's on a nice day. Wait for a real storm and not the "Q" type.

The administration will soon find out that competence matters most.

Jason Miciak is a past Associate Editor of Occupy Democrats, American attorney, author, and can also be found on Politizoom. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

Trump's latest threat is nothing short of domestic terrorism

If Donald Trump's lips move, he’s lying. Or trying to solicit a bribe. Or slandering Democrats. Or, now, taking hostages.

Most recently, he’s started lying about what congressional Democrats are demanding in exchange for giving the GOP the votes they need in the Senate to keep the government open past Oct. 1.

And now, Trump has announced that he's taking hostages. Federal employees will be fired, rather than temporarily furloughed, if there is a government shutdown.

But I’ll get to that in a moment. It isn’t where he started lying, bribe-getting, and slandering Democrats this week.

That was when the entire world watched, aghast, as Trump fulfilled his commitment to the fossil fuel industry and repeatedly lied before the assembled United Nations about fossil fuels, renewable energy, and climate change.

Back in April of last year, he’d addressed a private group of fossil fuel executives and billionaires, and said that he was offering them a “deal”: if they’d give his campaign massive contributions, he’d do pretty much whatever they wanted. The Hill has documented almost $140 million in bribes/contributions that followed the speech, and there’s likely far, far more in dark money contributions that we’ll never know about.

Thus, an embarrassed America had to watch as the entire world was treated to the president of the United States lying repeatedly in exchange for over a hundred million dollars. After all, his lips were moving.

The Emiratis placed a bet recently when they put $2 billion into a little crypto company that the Trump family and Steve Witkoff's family had started. Apparently in exchange, Trump authorized the transfer to the UAE of about a half-million top-tech chips, that had been blocked by national security concerns.

Generally, that’s called a “bribe,” although without the FBI doing an investigation we won’t know for sure. At the very least, it’s a conflict of interest. Ryan Cummings of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy, said:

“If this is true, this is the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the United States and it’s not even close.”

As our Constitution says:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” (emphasis added)

And now, on the verge of a government shutdown, Trump has rolled out one of the most audacious lies of the past … er … week. On his Nazi-infested failing social media site, he wrote:

“After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive.

“They are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens (A monumental cost!), force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors, have dead people on the Medicaid roles, allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits, try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World, allow men to play in women’s sports, and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.”

Let’s examine that:

— “over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending” is extraordinarily misleading. Even Republicans claim that would be the cost over 10 years to continue the Affordable Care Act subsidies, so people’s insurance costs don’t explode at the start of next year. And don’t forget that Republicans cut that trillion dollars in ACA and Medicaid spending so they could give a $3.5 trillion in tax breaks to Trump and his billionaire friends.

— “to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens” is up to the states, not the feds, as they control how their Medicaid dollars are disbursed. Most Blue states make their programs available to all legal immigrants, and some extend that to undocumented people, particularly pregnant women (and most Red states don’t). The reason is simple: we all share the same space. You don’t want the undocumented person standing behind you in line at the grocery store to have an active case of TB, for example; keeping everybody healthy is only common sense.

— “force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors” is complete horses––t. The Democratic leaders’ public position in the shutdown talks is an “ironclad” extension of ACA premium tax credits and reversing recent Medicaid cuts, full stop.

— “have dead people on the Medicaid roles [sic]” is another lie. Democrats’ Continuing Resolution (CR) demand is entirely and 100% about health coverage affordability and undoing cuts, not “funding dead people.”

— “allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits” is even beyond a lie, it’s a slander against both immigrants and Democrats. There is nothing even remotely close to letting anybody “steal” anything in their CR demand.

— “try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World,” is another libel against Democrats and the Biden administration. No president of either party since the 1920s has tried to “open our borders” to anybody, particularly criminals. And, again, the only firm Democratic demand is to extend the ACA/Obamacare subsidies and undo the cuts to Medicaid.

— “allow men to play in women’s sports” is both another lie and an attempt to inflame his queer-hating base. There’s no mention of this anywhere in anything any Democrat has said with regard to the CR and it’s not in their formal proposal. And the official Democratic Party position is that officials with responsibility for every sport should be able to decide if they want to allow trans athletes to compete or not (would anybody care if the sport was a Chess tournament?). Ironically, that’s the “small government” position.

— “essentially create Transgender operations for everybody” is so absurd as to be laughable, if it wasn’t that so many Republicans actually believe things Trump and his lickspittles in the rightwing media sewer put out.

On top of all that, the Trump administration announced today that if Democrats won’t vote to help keep the government open, they will begin mass layoffs of federal employees. This is pure hostage-taking, and radically raises the stakes for the Democrats in the Senate.

At the moment, the only solid demands Democrats are making in exchange for their vote to keep the government open are to extend the Obamacare subsidies and eliminate the Medicaid cuts that will phase in during January, 2027 just after the 2026 midterm elections.

They should, in my opinion, add the release of the Epstein files and the unmasking of ICE to that list.

America deserves to know if, in addition to having had a jury already determine that this convicted felon committed sexual abuse, our president was also involved in the abuse of young girls.

And polling shows that Americans are increasingly uncomfortable with unaccountable, masked secret police patrolling our streets and violently attacking citizens and protesters.

Whatever they do, though, I agree with the comment former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, now a Democrat, said on my SiriusXM radio program yesterday:

Every Democrat in the Senate should spend the next month in the reddest parts of their states doing town halls where Republicans refuse to, leaving the administration to twist in the wind of the bad publicity as the government shuts down and they begin firing federal workers.

Or conducting mock hearings about the UAE chips-bribery and the Epstein files.

What Trump’s doing with his mass firing threat is nothing short of economic terrorism against the American people.

For decades, government shutdowns meant temporary furloughs that were painful but reversible. Now, Trump and his cronies are using the threat of mass, permanent firings to gut the very institutions that protect our food, our air, our water, our workers, and our democracy itself.

This isn’t about budgets; it’s about power. It’s about dismantling the federal government so only Trump’s priorities — ICE, border patrol, and his authoritarian machinery — are left standing.

It’s a smash-and-grab of our constitutional order, a direct assault on Congress’s power of the purse, and an act of extortion against the American people: “Give us what we want, or we’ll torch the house.”

And here’s the bottom line: Democrats must never give in to hostage takers, because if you pay the ransom once, the next demand will be even bigger, the next threat even worse. Authoritarians don’t just bend the rules, they burn them down, and the only way to stop them is to refuse to play their game.

Courage!

The GOP's answer to our gathering health crisis? A eugenicist without the slightest clue

If the Republicans cared about the public’s wellbeing, they wouldn’t have confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the US Department of Health and Human Services. He had no business there, but that didn’t matter. Their top concern has been the wellbeing of Donald Trump.

Kennedy is now giving the Republicans a headache with insane talk of vaccines causing autism and how he had no choice but to fire the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director because, he said, she told him she was not trustworthy. But that headache isn’t borne of caring about people. It’s borne of concern that people might figure out the Republicans don’t care about them.

The secretary was under pressure before he fell to pieces last week during testimony before a Senate committee. More than a thousand former HHS workers had signed a petition calling on him to resign. The pressure only increased afterward. Kennedy’s sister and her son, a former congressman from Massachusetts, added their voices.

Here’s the New York Daily News reporting on it:

“‘Robert Kennedy Jr. is a threat to the health and well-being of every American,’ Joe Kennedy wrote on X the day after the hearing. As a purveyor of misinformation and sower of confusion, RFK is not adequately ‘protecting the public health of our country and its people,’ the secretary’s nephew said. “At yesterday’s hearing, he chose to do the opposite: to dismiss science, mislead the public, sideline experts and sow confusion.’

The Daily News report added: “The essential values of ‘moral clarity, scientific expertise, and leadership rooted in fact’ required of anyone taking on current challenges to public health in the US are simply ‘not present in the Secretary’s office,’ Joe Kennedy said. ‘He must resign.’”

But even if he resigned today, the fact remains that the Republicans who confirmed him still don’t care about public health. In addition to taking away Medicaid benefits from millions of people over the next decade, there’s the immediate emergency facing anyone who buys their health insurance through state exchanges (aka “Obamacare”).

If the congressional Republicans do nothing, and no one expects them to do anything, there are about 20 million enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces who will see their monthly premiums jump by an average of 75 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

And that’s if they’re lucky.

Charles Gaba, a health policy expert and founder of ACAsignups.net, told me in an interview last week (see below) that some people who are currently getting expanded federal subsidies could see their monthly premiums jump by “100 percent, 200 percent, 300 percent or more.”

Charles explained “there are two main reasons for this: congressional Republicans allowing the improved tax credits which have been in place since 2021 to expire, and the Trump administration changing the underlying ACA tax credit formula to make it even less generous yet.”

The Obamacare crisis won’t happen gradually over 10 years, like the Medicaid crisis will. It will happen over the next four months if congressional Republicans do not act by the end of this month.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to ramp up the pressure on their Republican colleagues by getting insurance providers to inform enrollees in September what’s going to happen.

In a letter, Democratic senators including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told insurers “individuals and families need clear, direct information from their health plans as soon as possible about their rising premiums and cost-sharing requirements, and worsening coverage.” They said the info should be sent "as early and directly as possible … Under these dire circumstances, annual premium notices set to be released in October will not come soon enough."

Axios said some Republicans are open to extensions “but they're also worried about the projected $335 billion cost over 10 years.”

That, my friend, is the tell.

The Republicans took one trillion dollars away from Medicaid and food stamps to cut taxes for rich people who will never notice their taxes were cut. Before that, the Republicans confirmed a conspiracy theorist, crank and weirdo as secretary of health and human services.

Do you think they’re really concerned about the public’s concern?

“There's still a small chance of Congress extending the tax credits this month, but it's unlikely,” Gaba told me, “and even if they do, I expect them to either weaken them, include a poison pill provision so they can blame a failure to extend them on Democrats, or both.”

JS: Lots of people still don't know they are going to be facing an enormous spike in their premiums. How bad is it going to be?

CG: Very, very bad.

As you know, I've spent the past several months shouting from the rooftops that tens of millions of Americans (around 23 million, give or take) enrolled in individual market health insurance policies are facing massive net premium increases starting January 1, 2026.

The increases will range widely depending on a variety of factors, of course, including where they live, what their household income is, how old they are and what policy they're currently enrolled in.

Overall, I estimate gross premium hikes (for those not currently receiving subsidies) will average around 23 percent, while the healthcare policy analysts at KFF estimate that net increases – that is, what the enrollees actually pay after federal tax credits are applied – will increase by an average of 75 percent nationally.

There's about 1.8 million unsubsidized enrollees on-exchange and 1-2 million off-exchange, who will be hit with the 23 percent average.

Meanwhile, there's around 21 million currently subsidized enrollees who will face the 75 percent average … and again, in many cases it will be much more than that: 100 percent, 200 percent, 300 percent or more for the same policy they're currently enrolled in.

There are two main reasons for this: congressional Republicans allowing the improved tax credits, which have been in place since 2021, to expire, and the Trump administration changing the underlying ACA tax credit formula to make it even less generous yet.

There's still a small chance of the Congress extending the tax credits this month, but it's unlikely, and even if they do, I expect them to either weaken them, include a poison pill provision so they can blame a failure to extend them on Democrats, or both.

Again, this will be happening well before the midterms, starting Jan. 1, 2026 – less than four months from now. And yes, my own family is among those facing this, as are you, as I understand it.

Kennedy testified last week. If you were a Senate Democrat, what would you have asked him about exploding insurance premiums?

To resign.

Seriously.

I thought about another long-winded answer, but there's no longer any point in arguing or debating his justifications for what he's done.

He's a eugenicist without the slightest clue about protecting the public from legitimate health crises and who, in fact, has caused and is causing more of them to happen daily. He needs to resign. Now.

He's going to try phasing out the COVID vaccine. I don't know what better evidence there is that it worked than the fact that we're still alive. Yet here we are, giving this man the benefit of the doubt.

Absolutely. During the depths of the COVID pandemic, conspiracy theorists were making all sorts of absurd claims that they were being "magnetized," that Bill Gates was using the vaccine to implant microchips into our bloodstreams (which is not only insane but ironic, given that Elon Musk is literally installing microchips into people's brains now via Neurolink), that it was supposedly causing Parkinson's-like shaking, etc, etc. All of this was complete garbage.

The boldest claim I heard was that everyone who took the COVID vaccine would shortly be dead, and in the months and years that followed, any time a public figure passed away from any cause (old age, hit by a car, whatever), somehow that "proved" their claim, which is absurd. Over 270 million Americans have received at least one COVID vaccine. Yet the vast majority of us are doing fine four years later.

It's absolute lunacy, doubly so when you consider that Operation Warp Speed — the public-private partnership by the first Trump administration to accelerate the development of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines — was a massive, legitimate success, which the Trump administration can sincerely claim bragging rights for. Yet somehow, his own base has decided that the very product of that success is some sort of liberal/Democratic conspiracy. Absolute madness.

The press corps can't be let off the hook. I can't count how many times I have read the phrase "vaccine skeptic," as if Kennedy is considerate and thoughtful, rather than liars and scammers. I don't know how to get truth-tellers to privilege facts over lies. Do you?

One of the reasons I've gained whatever respect I have for my healthcare data wonkery over the past decade-plus is that I do my best to use reliable sources. I cite those sources and when I make a mistake (which does happen from time to time), I do my best to own up to it, correct it and explain how I got it wrong.

While there are exceptions, a large portion of the press corps has allowed themselves to become bothsides stenographers who mindlessly repeat whatever drivel comes out of the mouths of Trump, Kennedy, Mehmet Oz and other charlatans in this administration. In many cases they're continuing to do this even as the Trump administration defunds, bullies and extorts their own organizations.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to get them to change their behavior; all I can control is my own, including doing the best I can to get my own data analysis and reporting right.

The erosion of science (vaccines), the erosion of health care (Obamacare), the erosion of the safety net (Medicaid). It's like the Republicans don't care about public health at all unless it affects them personally, and perhaps not even then (in the case of mass shootings). If people die, they die. Thoughts and prayers. Yet they enjoy a reputation for caring about people. How did this happen?

I don't think it was any one thing; racism and misogyny have played a major role, of course, along with decades of attacks on public education and on education in general. Regardless of what got the ball rolling, though, that it gained momentum makes perfect sense to me.

When the Republican Party started to become a slave to its most extreme elements, it started scaring away its genuinely sane, decent members, which, in turn, made those who remain more extreme and awful on average, which scares off more moderates, turning those who remain more extreme yet, and so on.

If this was the only part of the equation, it would be a recipe for the death of the party. However, the other factor is that as it's scaring off more and more moderate voices, it's also attracting more extreme members who had previously been shunned by both major parties.

Once Donald Trump came along, the floodgates were opened – he welcomed in and praised the most awful, racist, bat---- members of society. So here we are — with a Republican Party that seems to consist of almost nothing but the worst dregs of society.

These heartless GOP cuts put my daughter's life in danger

In Minnesota and across the nation, hardworking families like mine are bracing for impact after our Republican members of Congress voted to cut spending on Medicaid by $1 trillion over the next decade.

As a result, 17 million Americans will have coverage ripped away from them, all for tax breaks whose biggest beneficiaries will be billionaires and big corporations.

The latest estimate reported by the Minnesota Reformer shows at least 140,000 Minnesotans will lose coverage. The consequences of this bill will be felt for years to come, but some of its worst provisions will take effect in a matter of months.

Families like mine rely on Medicaid to keep our children, and our loved ones, healthy.

Our family receives Medicaid for our 11 year old daughter. She has a primary immune deficiency as well as a tethered spinal cord. Her medication costs over $75,000 a year, which we could not afford on our own or with my husband’s insurance.

Medicaid helps my daughter maintain her health so she does not end up critically ill with severe infections. It also prevents hospital visits and allows her to remain in school. Medicaid also helps cover the costs to monitor her tethered spinal cord and provide her with life-changing physical therapy. Without it, she could be at risk of losing her ability to be mobile.

Medicaid has changed her life.

Starting in 2026, families in Minnesota will feel the full force of the severe health care cuts.

First, premiums and out-of-pocket costs will skyrocket for people who purchase their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and many will lose coverage altogether due to miles of red tape.

Then, devastating cuts to Medicaid will begin to take effect. The savings are expected to come from pushing people off Medicaid through increasing eligibility verification. If we don’t vigilantly submit the correct paperwork, my daughter could lose her coverage.

At risk are hospitals whose patients are on Medicaid; seniors who need Medicaid for their nursing home care; and people fighting addiction or cancer.

Costs will skyrocket across the board: Minnesotans will be forced to travel further for maternity care and emergency rooms, face longer wait times due to hospital closures, and it will be harder for families to get covered and stay covered.

I fear for my daughter’s future — and for the millions of Minnesotans who rely on Medicaid to live. She did not ask for this. Nothing we did caused this. She was simply born with it. Both my husband and I are hard-working, tax-paying citizens that just happen to have a child with complex medical needs. For my daughter, this isn’t just about policy; it’s about survival. Without Medicaid, she loses access to the treatment that keeps her healthy, in school and full of life.

The damage will be felt in every corner of the country, including across Minnesota. In addition to people losing their health coverage, our local economy will suffer, with 18,000 jobs at risk in Minnesota due to these cuts.

Now that the bill is law, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans fully own the consequences. They jammed it through despite the fact that the American people overwhelmingly disapprove of these cuts.

When our premiums spike and out-of-pocket costs soar, families like mine will remember their vote. When we have nowhere to go for treatment, we’ll remember their vote. When our coverage is ripped away, we’ll remember their vote. When the obituaries pile up because people can no longer afford the care they need to stay alive, we’ll remember their vote.

Congressional Republicans must answer for the fallout.

As a mother, I won’t “get over it” as Sen. Mitch McConnell suggests, and I beg you don’t either.

Want to save Medicaid from GOP greed? Here's how

As members of Congress return to their districts for what is traditionally called the August congressional recess, Republican members will be working overtime to sell their constituents on the benefits of the Trump mega-bill (technically the “One Big Beautiful Bill”).

Republicans know well that this August will determine the outcome of the crucial 2026 midterm elections. In a memo from the Republican National Campaign Committee (NRCC) obtained by Politico, GOP members of Congress were advised:

While the election is still more than a year away, this August in-district work period is an opportunity to go home and sell your work to your constituents. With the One Big Beautiful Bill signed into law by President Trump just a few weeks ago, this is a critical opportunity to continue to define how this legislation will help every voter and push back on Democrat fearmongering.

The NRCC memo advises GOP members of Congress not to let Democrats define the agenda on Medicaid by stressing public support for eliminating waste and fraud and by instituting work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries.

Polling suggests that Republicans have their work cut out for them. Research conducted for The Wall Street Journal found that:

The findings show Republicans’ challenges in selling the law’s benefits as they try to hold their slim control of the House and Senate in next year’s midterm elections, and the poll demonstrates how Democrats might be able to capitalize on voters’ skepticism to stage a comeback. Overall, the law drew 42 percent support and 52 percent opposition, performing slightly worse than Trump himself in the poll. It generated negative marks from 94 percent of Democrats, 12 percent of Republicans, and 54 percent of independents.

On the other side of the call, the Journal research shows there is support for work requirements and increased checks on Medicaid eligibility. Furthermore, as always, there is support for tax cuts.

Much will depend on how the issues are framed. Right now, there is a lot of blank space for Democrats or Republicans to work with. Polling from CNN finds that only 27 percent say that they have been following debate over U.S. President Donald Trump’s mega-bill “very closely.”

In these times, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and that there is little or nothing that one person can do to make a difference. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This August you have a rare opportunity to help save American democracy by speaking out against the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s mega-bill. Reach out to your member of Congress and find out how you can attend a town meeting and speak out in support of Medicaid. If your member of Congress is not holding a town meeting, stop by their district office and share your concerns with congressional staff. Trust me as a former congressional district office staffer, your presence will be noted.

If you have never gone to a congressional town meeting or met with a member of Congress, it can be intimidating. There is no need to be nervous. Remember that they work for you! Here are some simple tips that might be helpful:

Remind your member of Congress that according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid pays for the care of fully 60 percent of patients in nursing homes.
Tell your member of Congress that according to the American Hospital Association, 40 percent of all the births in this country are paid for by Medicaid.
Convey the real-world impact of what cuts to Medicaid would be. Do not fall into the trap of defending Medicaid as a government program. Instead, talk about anyone you know who relies on Medicaid. If you rely on Medicaid, you should share that. Polling data shows that fully 60 percent of Americans know someone who depends on Medicaid. The more personal you make the issue of Medicaid, the more effective you will be.
If you live in a rural area, tell your member of Congress that their vote for the Trump mega-bill will hurt your local hospital. According to the National Rural Health Association, “the bill will limit access to care for all rural patients by ending healthcare coverage for rural residents nationwide and putting financial strain on rural facilities who care for them.” Do not talk about rural hospitals in general, talk about your local hospital and why it is important.
Provide the “why” in your Medicaid advocacy. Tell your member of Congress that you know that Medicaid is being cut to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.

Martin Burns resides with his wife Mary Liz in Washington, D.C. Most recently, he was on the campaign trail for Harris-Walz in Pennsylvanian and North Carolina. He has worked as a congressional aide, journalist, and lobbyist and is a member of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and a member of the National Writers Union.

They torpedoed Medicaid already. Is this precious program next?

Medicare turned 60 years old on Wednesday. Former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law on July 30, 1965, giving seniors a guarantee of health coverage that never existed before. Prior to Medicare's enactment, it was nearly impossible for older people to obtain health insurance, as they were considered a "bad risk."

Medicare provides universal coverage to Americans over 65 years of age. The law created Medicare Part A as a national hospital insurance program. Part B is a voluntary program for doctor visits and other medical services. Medicare Part C is another name for the privatized, for-profit version of the program called "Medicare Advantage." And Part D is the prescription drug program enacted in 2003.

The Hospital Insurance portion is funded through workers' payroll contributions. At the signing ceremony in Independence, Missouri, LBJ said, "Through this new law, every citizen will be able, in their productive years when they are earning, to insure themselves against the ravages of illness in his old age."

Johnson paid tribute to former President Harry S. Truman, presenting him with the very first Medicare card. It was Truman who, 20 years earlier, had proposed a form of universal medical coverage for the American people.

LBJ quoted Truman's remarks from the 1940s:

Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection.

It turned out that the time had not yet arrived. Truman's proposal failed to gain traction during a time of retrenchment from the expansions of the New Deal, and a Republican majority on Capitol Hill which he famously labeled the "Do-Nothing Congress."

President Johnson's determination to enact his Great Society agenda (of which Medicare was a large part) and sheer political muscle—not to mention solid Democratic control of Congress — pushed Medicare (and its sister program, Medicaid) into being.

Naturally, Medicare faced strong opposition from conservatives. None other than Ronald Reagan made the ludicrous prediction that if Medicare were enacted, "You and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free." Sixty years later, we are no less "free" because of Medicare. In fact, having guaranteed healthcare makes seniors and people with disabilities (and their families) much more free — from disease, from worry, and financial ruin.

Today, 68 million people rely on Medicare for health coverage, including 12 million who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.

Medicare isn't perfect: The for-profit Medicare Advantage (Part C) program is extremely problematic (see below). The Medicare Part A trust fund will become depleted in 2033 if Congress fails to take action to strengthen it. Traditional Medicare still doesn't cover basic hearing, vision, and dental care — which we have been pushing for many years. But most concerning of all, President Donald Trump and his party have spent this 60th anniversary year actively undermining both Medicare and Medicaid.

The "Unfair, Ugly" bill that Trump signed earlier this month slashed nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, which will strip health coverage from an estimated 10 to 16 million lower-income Americans. The new law — projected to add some $4 trillion to the national debt — could trigger cuts to Medicare down the road.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is recklessly taking steps to privatize the entire Medicare program. It has announced a pilot project to involve private companies in conducting prior authorizations for care in traditional Medicare. The administration, under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Mehmet Oz, also has announced a plan to automatically enroll new Medicare beneficiaries in the for-profit Medicare Advantage (MA) program — a huge gift to the multibillion-dollar insurance industry at the expense of patients.

The problems with Medicare Advantage (MA) have become legendary. Enrollees are basically put into health maintenance organizations run by insurance giants, with limited networks of providers. Unreasonable denials of care are rampant. Patients who become disenchanted with MA plans often find it nearly impossible to switch to traditional Medicare. Meanwhile, some MA Insurers have been overcharging the government for their services and ripping off taxpayers. (Several of these companies are currently under investigation.)

We are watching to see if the Trump administration, which talks a good game about lowering prescription medication costs while simultaneously doing favors for Big Pharma, will honor the provisions of President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which made myriad patient-friendly reforms to the Part D drug program — including out of pocket caps for beneficiaries and empowering Medicare to negotiate prices with the industry.

The bottom line is: Let's not allow President Trump and congressional Republicans to shred one of the greatest legacies of LBJ's Great Society. We and our fellow advocacy groups are pushing back — and so is the grassroots "Hands Off" movement. But we don't want to be fighting this same battle every time Medicare (and Medicaid) mark an anniversary when we should be purely celebrating.

Max Richtman is president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. He is former staff director at the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging.

'Tidal wave on our hands’: Furious voters say Trump’s turning key red state purple

Angry voters in Iowa could turn the state from solid red to a swing state because they feel betrayed by President Donald Trump on issues from healthcare to agriculture.

According to an article in Newsweek, Iowa has "leaned Republicans" for nearly a decade, with Trump carrying the state "by 9 points in 2016, 8 points in 2020, and about the same in 2024."

But that could soon change if the latest polling is accurate.

"Democrats and independents argue that key parts of Trump's agenda — from cutting Medicaid to promoting cane sugar over corn syrup — are alienating voters in this farm-heavy state," wrote politics reporter Jesus Mesa.

Trump recently bragged on social media that he convinced Coca-Cola to use cane sugar over corn syrup in its American product. "This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!" he wrote.

One corn and soybean farmer told Newsweek the "move was 'a betrayal' of Trump's own 'America First' pledge."

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Julie Stauch told Newsweek, "People on the ground here are definitely very angry about a wide variety of things Republicans are doing. They're allowing themselves to be intimidated by a bully... but voters feel the impact of those decisions."

Of particular issue to Iowans are "Medicaid cuts, clean water problems, and declining support for public schools," Mesa wrote, adding that "Stauch likened the voter mood to a tsunami gathering offshore."

"By the time we get to the election, I think we're going to find out we have a tidal wave on our hands," Stauch said. "People are pissed off. They're angry."

Read the Newsweek article here.

It’s not enough Trump slashes tax for the rich: here's how he punishes the poor

The income tax, corporate tax, and estate tax raise revenue for our collective needs and do so progressively, falling most heavily on those most able to pay. These are the funding sources Republicans chose to attack in their megabill. That’s why the law’s huge giveaways go so resoundingly to the uber-rich. All told, the richest 1 percent – a group with incomes exceeding $916,900 per year – will get a trillion dollars in tax cuts over the next decade. Find the average annual gift to the wealthiest 1 percent in your state here.

More than 70 percent of this law’s tax cuts go to the richest fifth of people, while middle-income Americans get just 10 percent and the poorest fifth get less than 1 percent. And for 80 percent of Americans, Trump’s tariffs will offset most or all of the tax cuts by raising prices on things we all buy.

It’s not enough that Trump slashes taxes on the rich. He partially pays for those cuts in ways that punish poor and working-class people.

The new law makes the biggest reductions to health care in American history – stripping insurance coverage from 17 million Americans by kicking them off of Medicaid and taking away their Affordable Care Act subsidies. On top of booting people off health care, this will force near immediate closure of more than 300 rural hospitals.

The second major funding source literally takes food from hungry families by slashing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (once known as food stamps), a program that provided a meager but essential $2.84 per person per meal last year. These are the biggest attacks on food aid in history, abandoning a core federal commitment to provide at least minimal nutrition to the elderly, disabled people, and the very poorest children.

The final major spending cuts end incentives that were sparking jobs and investments in the green energy economy. This threatens 4,500 clean energy projects, imperils hundreds of thousands of jobs, and is projected to add billions of dollars to Americans’ annual energy costs. The subsidies were reducing the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Gutting them is a baffling choice as hurricane season bears down on coastal regions. They also were strengthening domestic energy production, making the U.S. less dependent on oil suppliers in the middle east and elsewhere.

Despite spending cuts, the bill will add trillions over the next decade to the national debt. This will shift costs onto the next generation, making it more expensive to borrow to buy a home, finance college, or even purchase the basics.

My father-in-law lived a great life in part because of taxes. His generation – particularly white men in his generation – benefitted from growing investments in public schools, affordable college, a GI bill that made housing and higher education even more manageable, a skyrocketing economy, and plentiful jobs often with unions, wage growth, and sometimes, as in his case, great health insurance and a full pension.

None of the benefits of the boomer generation were distributed equally and Black Americans were particularly left out. And starting with Ronald Reagan’s assault on unions, job quality deteriorated, with health coverage and pensions eroding particularly for workers without a college degree.

But make no mistake, President Trump and his Congress have guaranteed that fewer Americans will have health insurance, more children will go hungry, and states will have less federal funding to deliver good schools, affordable college, and quality roads and bridges.

A hard-working, devoted, optimistic man, my father-in-law had unyielding confidence that America would keep its promise to the next generation. This week Republicans reneged on that promise. We can collectively reclaim it, so every baby born today has the chance at upward mobility and achievement that many in previous generations did. America’s future just got dimmer. We have an obligation to restore its brightness.

Amy Hanauer joined ITEP in 2020, bringing nearly 30 years of experience working to create economic policy that advances social justice. As executive director of both ITEP and Citizens for Tax Justice, Amy provides vision and leadership to promote fair and equitable state and national tax policy.