One of the outcomes of Trump’s “culture war” approach to the pandemic during his first administration was the documented excess death rate of the MAGA partisans who refused to wear masks or get vaccinated. Although I’m unaware of research into the survival rates of the even more hard-core cult members who imbibed bleach and/or Hydroxychloroquine per Trump’s suggestions, I assume those outcomes were similarly unfortunate.
This time around, Trump is doubling down on his “angel of death” approach.
Thanks to his “Big Beautiful Bill,” health care costs are poised to go through the roof. As a recent essay in the New York Times put it, health spending in the United States since 1975 “has pushed down wages, fueled inequality and left families drowning in unaffordable medical bills.” The essay’s author, who teaches public health and economics at Yale, says the administration is making it worse, and that rising health care spending is killing the American dream.
The imminent sharp rise in health insurance premiums has been front page news for several months, but unaffordable costs are just one of the health threats faced by the vast majority of Americans who cannot pay exorbitant costs out of pocket. The installation of Mr. Brain Worm as Secretary of Health and Human Services has turned America’s public health agencies over to cranks who elevate conspiracy theories over vetted medical science.
Lincoln Square recently enumerated the threats. For example, as we’ve just seen, the CDC just voted to end universal Hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for newborns, despite the fact that the mandate has demonstrably saved lives.
Now, under Trump guidance, only infants of mothers who test positive (or whose status is unknown) receive the recommendation. Everyone else? Optional. Delayed. A ‘maybe’ if the parents decide to go that route in two months.
And here’s the thing RFK Jr. and the Trump regime aren’t talking about:
Medicare and Medicaid only cover vaccines that are recommended by federal bodies like the CDC. If you cut the recommendation, you cut the coverage. And when you cut the coverage, vaccinations become a commodity. The wealthy will pay out of pocket to protect their kids. The poor will hope and wait – and hope doesn’t prevent liver cancer.
As the article points out, this most recent assault is part of a pattern that has emerged during Trump’s second term. Health protections have been shifted from a public good to a private luxury, and preventative care is being turned into something you buy, not a human right. The wealthy get immunized; the poor get sick.
The Trump administration has raised healthcare costs, reduced Medicaid access, and increased premiums and deductibles. Working individuals can’t keep up with the costs–and fewer Americans are working.
Americans have now watched 1.1 million jobs vanish in 2025 – the most since 2020 – with Amazon alone cutting as many as 30,000 corporate positions. Not part-time workers, but white-collar analysts, engineers, and project managers who were told they would be insulated from the automation. And rather than sounding the alarms, the Trump regime has been covering for their billionaire buddies. Jobs reports? Non-existent, because the truth is politically inconvenient when corporations are firing workers in droves during the holidays.
And in a country where healthcare is tied to employment – where those who lose work fall back on Medicaid, and Medicaid only covers vaccines recommended by the CDC – the consequences compound quickly. If parents can’t access affordable healthcare, can’t find work, can’t afford fresh food, and can’t protect their children from preventable disease, then the future looks less like a safety net and more like a prison shiv. A slow attrition of the working class. A world where the wealthy live longer, healthier lives while everyone else is riddled with disease, hungry, and desperate.
For much of my adult life, I have marveled at the idiocy of America’s approach to healthcare. We pay far more–and get far less–than other first world countries, countries that long ago recognized that healthcare is a human right, and incidentally, that national coverage offers efficiencies leading to very substantial cost savings.
Trump and his MAGA GOP are rolling back Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act–America’s incremental “baby steps” toward more universal coverage–and substituting magical thinking for medical science. They are also ensuring that only the rich will be able to protect their health and that of their children.
As the linked article asks, “Is this the collateral damage of incompetence, or the blueprint of a ruling class preparing for a future where most of us just aren’t needed?”
I’m going to guess that the people who are impacted most by Secretary Smack and President Psychopath are poor, brown and about to experience a visit from ICE.
What on Earth have we descended into becoming?
Vernon, only refugee immigrants get some coverage. Or in an emergency, you know, the hospital has to keep you alive if they can. And many of the US poor are not people of color. We are ALL going to suffer.
Melinda, thanks for sharpening my point. Yes, when the U.S. has something like 50 million people who are food insecure, certainly the demographics will look like a shift toward minority populations.
Yes. We’re all going to suffer, both financially and spiritually. Seeing our once-great – or trying to be great – nation being savaged by this collection of idiots certainly is breaking my old heart.
Yes, Vern, they are trying to eliminate the “undesirables.” MAGA Republicans still believe that black people are the only ones on Medicaid. Anything they can do to eliminate them or get them off Medicaid is a bonus for our oligarchy.
I just had this discussion on Substack, and Sheila is precisely on target. The USA is and always has been the worst healthcare system among wealthy nations. Dead last. Once I showed that figure, the argument pivoted to Asian countries having a superior wellness culture over the West. But I found three Western countries in the Top 5, including Canada and England.
Taiwan pays around 3% of its GDP on healthcare and has the most efficient healthcare system. The USA pays about 18% of GDP and has the least efficient healthcare system.
And, what drives me crazy is our oligarch-controlled media uses their anti-big-government rhetoric (socialism) to get the majority of Americans to reject Universal Healthcare. They equate socialism with communism and Nazi Germany (ignorance). The oligarchs do not want to have any of their pay going toward other people’s healthcare. I’ve heard that “conservatism” rejects that concept. 🙁
From what my newsletters are saying this morning, it would appear we have a measles outbreak in South Carolina’s religious community and beyond. This is happening after Utah/Arizona/Texas already had an outbreak. We had eradicated measles. I guess their god didn’t protect them as claimed.
Just as the United States has never seen the need to retool its foundational principles of government (the electoral college, the right to bear arms, the number of congressional representative) so too we have never taken a hard look at how medical service is paid for.
Gone are the days when old doc Brown could be paid for with a bag of walnuts and two “just killed” chickens. Today’s old doc Brown now has an office staff of ten, malpractice insurance, office rent or mortgage, plus a personal lifestyle right out of Millionaire’s Digest all paid for via “fee for service”.
We are a nation in need of a good shrink, if only we could afford one.
“at·tri·tion
/əˈtriSHən/
noun
1.
the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure:
“the council is trying to wear down the opposition by attrition”
Similar
wearing down, wearing away, weakening, debilitation, enfeebling, sapping, attenuation, harassment, harrying”
“One of the outcomes of Trump’s “culture war” approach to the pandemic during his first administration was the documented excess death rate of the MAGA partisans who refused to wear masks or get vaccinated.” One outcome of Trump’s approach to his past level of health care which has now accelerated to the entire system being destroyed to fill his coffers and those of his billionaire BFFs and protection of his actions by SCOTUS is attrition at a life-and-death level. Remember the death rate increased faster than where bodies could be taken resulted in refrigerated trucks being filled outside many hospitals throughout this country. The ending of the “strength and effectiveness” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the correct title of the bill, is buried under the act of attrition by stirring up hatred by calling it “Obamacare” to include the system in the current anti-DEI administration.
“As the linked article asks, “Is this the collateral damage of incompetence, or the blueprint of a ruling class preparing for a future where most of us just aren’t needed?” Once the new laws go into effect the vast majority of needs for health care and reasonable prescription cost will become “pre-existing conditions” and are not covered. “The Pro-Death Administration” will go into full effect and the best investment of your money will be in funeral costs.
” A world where the wealthy live longer, healthier lives while everyone else is riddled with disease, hungry, and desperate.” Sounds like the world of Charles Dickens!
The amount of suffering this Big Dumb One is causing, and will, cause is going to be massive. And, yes measles is having a new heyday among the blind followers.
this is criminally sad!
It takes a special kind of ignorance to believe that a society such as ours benefits from this mix of liberal, treating everyone regardless of their ability to pay, and only some can afford preventative care.