As we all know, the United States is the only first-world country without a national health-care program. While the approaches differ, most advanced countries consider access to healthcare a human right–not a consumer product. Here in the US, efforts to extend that access–Medicare, Medicaid, and more recently the Affordable Care Act–have been met with hysterical claims that such programs are “socialism” and incompatible with freedom.
I’m not the first person to note that these critics don’t seem nearly as upset by programs that can accurately be labeled “socialism for the rich.” Increasingly, American economic policy, with its generous tax advantages and outright subsidies, seems to be socialism for the rich and brutal capitalism for the poor. But a dissertation on that topic is for another day.
The scolds who resent any effort to make health insurance more affordable or accessible are among those who have produced the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, so we shouldn’t be surprised by the Project’s health care proposals. Neither should we con ourselves into believing that Project 2025 isn’t an outline that Trump will follow if elected–there is ample evidence to the contrary.
So–what health policies would another Trump Administration pursue?
A doctor writing in Time Magazine has recently explained why voters need to understand that agenda–especially when it comes to healthcare– and take it seriously.
Sponsored by the right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation, the Project 2025 policy agenda was written by more than 400 conservative experts and published in a book titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. While Trump has publicly disavowed the initiative, he has endorsed (and even tried to implement) many of its core proposals, several of which were penned by his former staffers.
The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has made life-saving drugs like insulin more affordable. Project 2025 calls for its repeal.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—signed into law by President Biden two years ago—capped insulin costs at $35 per month for people on Medicare. The data show that this cap increased the number of insulin prescriptions that were filled, ensuring more patients with diabetes got what they needed to stay healthy. The IRA will also cap annual out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs (not just insulin) for seniors starting next year. And despite aggressive lobbying and legal challenges from drugmakers, the law empowered Medicare to negotiate prices with Big Pharma for the first time in history, achieving significant discounts and saving billions. These are just a few of the many reasons more than 500 health professionals recently signed an open letter to protect the IRA.
Other provisions of Project 2025 would reduce access to Medicaid. Currently, more than 70 million low-income Americans rely on Medicaid for health care. The Project proposes lifetime caps on benefits and the addition of work requirements as a condition for coverage, among other onerous changes.
Unsurprisingly, Project 2025 would not only restrict abortion at the national level, it would also eliminate no-cost coverage for some contraception. (Those Right-wingers really want women to breed….) Of course, once children have been produced, concern for their welfare vanishes.
Project 2025 takes particular aim at the well-being of children. The authors seek to prevent public health agencies from requiring vaccination in school children, which could cause more outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles. They also propose invalidating state laws intended to stem gun violence, a leading cause of death for children in the U.S. Project 2025 would even eliminate Head Start, a critical program for early childhood development, especially in low-income and rural communities.
As the doctor writes, implementation of even a few of these proposed policies would set back decades of progress in medicine and public health.
The Harris/Walz ticket has used the slogan “We Won’t Go Back.” The usual interpretation of that phrase is that it refers to women’s reproductive liberty, but it actually–and accurately– describes what is really at stake in November’s election. MAGA is a movement entirely focused on taking America back–back to a time when women were property, Black and Brown people second-class citizens, LGBTQ+ people closeted, and adequate medical care a consumer good available only to those who could afford it.
I don’t know when opposition to vaccination and common-sense public health measures became part of the ideology of the Right. I don’t know why MAGA folks think the working poor aren’t entitled to health care. I don’t understand their evident belief that government should cater to White Christian males to the exclusion of other citizens.
But I do know they’re stuck in a past that I don’t want to return to. When people say this election poses an existential choice, they aren’t engaging in hyperbole.
With all of these health care issues the issue of mental health care pops up from time to time; usually after a tragedy like school and mass shootings. There are many mental health issues which are simply treated as something that pills will control, if not considered the only option to cure. My 24 year old grandson, the victim of Terbutaline prescription to prevent early labor for his mother. There are few studies regarding the effects on the fetus by this medication; he also has physical symptoms ignored and untreated. Application for Disability resulted time and time again for psychological testing or treatment which is not covered by the family health care insurance. They have now been referred to a Brain Center when increasing anxiety medication didn’t work. How many families are faced with this problem in this country’s lack of health care coverage for mental health issues being blamed for the death toll from mass shootings? With the possibility of Trump and Project 2025 ahead of us, will it go to the lengths of Hitlers “cure” for the mental defectives in this country? The leading mentally defective himself will not be included in the treatment or cure should he again be appointed to the presidency. And that is a frightening possibility at this time and until after November 5th when the results are counted.
“But I do know they’re stuck in a past that I don’t want to return to. When people say this election poses an existential choice, they aren’t engaging in hyperbole.”
It’s unfortunate that the word “socialism” has been poisoned among our generation of Americans. Because Senator Bernie Sanders openly ran as a “democratic socialist,” and drew crowds of thousands of young voters who were not put off by the label, Senator Sanders still promotes fearlessly the plank of Medicare for All. He knows a significant portion of the population will favor its implementation to all Americans, not just those over retirement age threshold.
It was amusing that during Senator Sanders’ national campaign, WAPO, in every article about Sanders, used the phrase, “self-described democratic socialist” as a pejorative. But young voters just shrugged their shoulders and said, “So?”
For those older voters who can still be panicked by the term socialism, it would be difficult to find a majority who would oppose socialized highways, fire departments, water systems, garbage collection and police departments — which are all common-sense implementations of socialized services, and actually make us all willing “socialists.”
Democrats offer a vision that maximizes freedom for all of us, the people.
Republicans offer a nightmare for us, the people, by limiting their consideration to me, the Republican. Republican in this context means those who find Fox News and the like entertaining.
The word socialist strikes fear in the hearts and minds of way too many older people in our country. They simply can’t tolerate the thought of it. You can point out those things we do socialize and it doesn’t seem to affect them.
It seems they associate socialism with communism, which they know as something that Russia does, therefore it must be bad and evil. We can’t have that! There’s now a dichotomy about Russia, led by tfg in which Putin is good and smart and a great leader, while Russia is still a little iffy, although not as bad as Ukraine.
Russia is an oligarchy like the US. From what I’ve read about Ukraine, they were a majorly corrupt oligarchy. One of their billionaires was the head of a familia and thus acquired his assets the old-fashioned way. As a bit of karma, his primary assets were in Eastern and Southeastern Ukraine, now owned and operated by Russia.
Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance spread their wealth to both Republicans and Democrats to keep their price gouging of Americans going strong. Eli Lilly is one of the worst scoundrels of them all. For the first decade, beginning in 2010, Lilly’s inflation rate for insulin was 149%. Big Insurance is the death panel Sarah Palin threatened us with over Obamacare. You have non-medically trained staff making decisions on what treatments and drugs you can have.
Our healthcare system is unsustainable due to its profit-seeking ways. We, the people, cannot afford it, but the oligarchy claims the way to save costs is to kick off poor people on Medicaid and the elderly on Medicare. Our fellow Americans have no problem with that idea as long as it doesn’t impact them (which it does).
The only way to have the healthcare we deserve and can afford is to have the government facilitate healthcare for us – one purchaser like Medicare. Eliminate the health insurance industry, which adds an unnecessary layer of a profit-seeking bureaucracy.
The physicians, medical equipment makers, insurance, hospitals, pharma, etc., all have major lobby groups in Washington to ensure that the profit-seeking healthcare system remains as is – status quo.
p.s. Do you think the Gannett-owned newspapers in this state ever spoke ill of Eli Lilly when the drug maker has a giant endowment (accumulated profits) that it uses to control much of Indiana? LOL
Regarding what Todd said: I agree that Medicare for all is the solution we should strive for, but also allow for a hybrid system that includes the insurance industry while not making that mandatory—which would incentivize the private insurers. I’m more than happy with the advantage plan I have on Medicare, which provides more flexibility regarding which healthcare providers I seek, and which also provides supplemental funds that I can apply to copays, OTC items, and groceries. Many of these supplemental plans require $0 premiums.
On another note, I had the great good fortune to attend a fundraising meet-n-greet yesterday for Dr. Valerie McCray yesterday. As Sheila has mentioned before, Dr. Valerie is running for the Senate seat against the loathsome Jim Banks. As a clinical psychologist, she is acutely aware of the need for improved mental health care, among the myriad other needs of modern society. Her speech was unscripted (she doesn’t use scripted speeches ever, which she said drives her staff nuts lol), and was more like a fireside chat—lakeside, in yesterday’s case—and her responses during the Q&A period were equally unscripted. We had a chance to see and talk with the real woman and see how well she thinks on her feet. I came away feeling energized, grateful for the experience, and ready to do my bit.
GOTV BLUE!!
Id like to say,the media has a bad attitude to 2025. they refer it as a wish list.
seems that the republicans since reagan have made the same stands in and out of each congress year. though wall street has gained 350% over wage growth since 1978-2018 epi.org. we the working class are private keeping healthcare alive while we die for stupid shit. see doc who removed liver instead of spline in florida recently. beside the fact, the growth of wall street and the billionaires pocket is directly related to a some what health work force. were paying to surviv while our pockets get sucked dry by those who throw a pittnace in our pay and call it a living wage. yea right.. unless theres more to Harris’s comeon, shes already siding with the billiinair class on some items. when do we finally drop kick these mega/magas in the crotch and get on with an American work force that is bigger than musks mellon? seem voting blue is fine, we have no other choice. but Harris needs to improve our overall lives because this maga.mega game is too long in history. it needs to end. She needs to come forth and kick some of these thieves to the curb.
Other Sheila: Theres a news article i ran across recently, seems the congress may require ACA to actully demand mental health in every plan. it was rigged not to since 2008. go figure what side of the isle was not for mental health, but for kids killing kids.
school admin should have been aware and locked down that school in Ga. they didnt. the guy with a gun a SRO obvioulsy failed. and dad needs a severe spanking. if his mentorship allowed a loaded gun, how many more do?
Tricare is federal health insurance for active military to take into the private sector. It keeps the rates reasonable and if made universal would keep the quality of private sector providers good to compete for business. There is nothing gained in the healthcare equation by having private sector employees hovering over insurance pools to make profits for shareholders. The focus on health plans and implementation for patients can be secondary in that model.
My concern about advantage plans is that the insurance company has too much leverage over the doctors. Their insurance clerks decide what tests and procedures will be covered for the patient and that system really puts health care providers in a bind. Incentives are offered to providers and with our Medicare dollars, to keep costs down for insurance company. I think the contract between the doctor and patient needs to be protected for optimal health outcomes.
It should be outlawed that hospitals sell medical debt to unscrupulous bill collectors who use consistent harassing methods to collect in full. They paid pennies on the dollar for the debt. These are the kind of practices that unregulated business and project 2025 endorses.