Originally published at: Trump Policies Could Take Health Insurance From 17 Million
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation. The big tax and spending package President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, will cut government spending on health care by more than $1 trillion over the next decade. Because the final version…
MAGA logic: Divine intervention saved DJT from an assassination attempt so he could take away health care coverage to American citizens so that the wealthy and powerful can get secure, long term tax breaks??
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Below, from the article is exactly why I predict there will be very little political price for Republicans taking away healthcare from 17,000,000 Americans over 50% of whom voted for Trump. That is my prediction is there will be no political price for Republicans taking away healthcare from about 10,000,000 of their own voters and the reason is:
Losing Medicaid coverage may leave millions of low-income Americans without insurance coverage, with no affordable alternatives for health care. Historically, the people who are most likely to lose their benefits are low-income people of color or immigrants who do not speak English well.
One of the most brilliant political and marketing strategies ever was Republicans labeling the ACA “Obamacare”. This made most people not affected by the ACA, which is almost everyone who had insurance before the ACA, think the ACA was for Black people or other people of color.
One of the biggest failures of the media and the Democrats is the failure to point out that over 70% of the people who have healthcare for themselves and their children thanks to the ACA are White people with a high school diploma or less and living disproportionally in the South, or as the media calls them, the base of the GOP.
The truth is reports that Black people and others of color and especially immigrants will lose healthcare is exactly what Republicans voters want including White GOP voters who themselves are receiving Medicaid and other Government assistance. The truth is that while most of the people who will be hurt by Trump’s actions will be White and most of them vote for Trump and Republicans, I predict these stories that highlight harm to immigrants and especially people of color will mean White people losing Government benefits will continue to vote for Republicans.
Many White people on Government assistance will tell you that they deserve more but get less because the Government is giving so much to others. That is many White people on Government assistance think as true Americans they deserve more but get less because the Government gives everything to …"
For White people not receiving Government assistance, as far as they know only people of color get Government assistance anyway.
Therefore just like there was little upside and quite the downside to Democrats fighting to provide healthcare to Republicans, I predict there will be no political price to pay for Republicans taking healthcare away from at least 10,000,000 Americans who currently vote for Republicans.
What Republican base voters want, is a return to the 1950s when top marginal tax rates (the tax rate on the NEXT dollar of income) were 90% and Government benefits flowed freely to White people and especially White men and were mostly denied to anyone of color and especially Black people. What they are getting is a return to the late 1800s when there were a few superrich and powerful and most people lived in poverty but that is different discussion.
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Glad to see he is screwing the rural hospitals. Another albatross to hang around his neck. And in person for so many propagandized bigots and zealots.
A giant golden millwheel round the neck of the GOP. Love it.
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And the moment they do lose it, The Ministry of Truth will instruct them to blame Obama and just like the trained seals they are, they will.
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Oh goody. The long-anticipated death spiral. As someone dependent on the ACA, this just ups the ante for our long-planned emigration across the pond next year, assuming the First Felon doesn’t do something, either directly or indirectly, to foreclose that possibility…
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It is not just people losing their benefits. They will continue to get ill, and show up at ER’s. And the Hospitals will have un-reimbursed costs. Which they will have to recover from somewhere. Like people with insurance.
Expect insurance rates to go up as the size of the pool of insured srinks.
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OTOH, it’s nice for me and my wife, having a hospital 16 miles away. I mean, the one that’s 120 miles away is a really good hospital, but of course, a lot of people don’t survive the trip there.
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America is now run by people who believe that knowledge is dangerous, and ignorance is strength.
But before getting to that, I actually had an opportunity to make your very point that universal healthcare decreases the costs to those with health insurance several years ago to the Republican governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, who was calling for the repeal of what he called “Obamacare”, he refused to say ACA. I pointed out that both me and my wife have insurance through our jobs, and the only real impact of the ACA for us was to lower what we were paying for our healthcare.
His response was, “that the states are the laboratories of democracy and the federal government should listen to the states for what works”. When I pointed out, “is that not exactly what happened. A governor of Massachusetts named Mitt Romney (who at that time was recently elected a U.S. Senator from Utah which I did not need to mention) developed a system that worked great in his state and for that reason was taken nationally”, Governor Herbert had no answer and called for another question.
In a completely unrelated matter, Trump administration making severe cuts in the budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service, Paul Krugman concludes his column with:
America is now run by people who believe that knowledge is dangerous, and ignorance is strength.
The fact is as far as they are concerned, to Trump and Republicans, knowledge is dangerous and ignorance is where they get their power/“strength”.
While it is unrelated to this subject, the entire column is available at
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Meh, who needs health insurance? Just die already (GOP thinking).
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Real medicine in America needs a triage center 30 miles by road from any citizen, maximum.
Making the Golden Hour for stroke be the first attainable health goal for all Americans would save billions in dollars. Even mandatory education would save thousands per year.
The evangelicals bought a media hegemony in the Heartland, and they’ve anointed Trump. We’re seeing how far these mindless fools will go.
They already believe anyone speaking against Israel is antisemitic, while at the same time believing all Jews will burn for eternity in a fiery pit.
The South has risen again, behind the same churches, and this time paid for by the Fed.
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Watching the MLB All Star Game. At one point those attending stood displaying placards with the names of someone they know who has cancer. Thousands and thousands. This administration and the GOP are doing all they can to disappoint every one of them by destroying healthcare and the science behind it.
One reason: These cuts don’t start until after the midterm elections (there is a method to their madness).
OTOH - Republicans want a smaller government…so they push major lifelines to the state governments in unfunded mandates. The state then either raises taxes and hires loads of people to take care of the unfunded federal mandates which in turns creates big state government…
OR they say we can’t follow an unfunded mandate so we’ll drop it and you can sue us, which the feds won’t because they are a smaller government.
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And for those scumbag private equity fucks to sweep in, buy the hospital for pennies on the dollar, then take a $500M “loan” out against it and leave the banks holding the bag. Again.
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