What the Health??

Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post/Getty Images

2025 has given us a scary uptick in news about the H5N1 bird flu. So why has President Trump chosen now to defund so many critical healthcare safety nets? His recent orders provide a roadmap that health researchers say could increase the number of uninsured Americans and weaken safety net protections for low-income people.

Here's his impact from just the past 4 days.

• On day one Trump rolled back the following Biden directives that had promoted lowering drug costs and expanding coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid.

  • The lengthened enrollment period for the ACA.

  • The increased funding for groups that help people enroll

  • Support for the Inflation Reduction Act, which boosted subsidies to help people buy coverage.

  • The order asking Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to consider tests to lower drug costs.

  • New measures such as setting a flat $2 copay for some generic drugs in Medicare, and having states try to get better prices by banding together to buy certain expensive cell and gene therapies.

  • Rescinded Biden orders on racial and gender equity and issued an order asserting that there are only two sexes, male and female.

  • Trump also halted new regulations that were under development like expanded coverage of anti-obesity medications through Medicare and Medicaid and a rule that would limit nicotine levels in tobacco products

  
  

"Medicaid will be a focus because it's become so sprawling. It's grown after the pandemic. Provisions have expanded, such as using social determinants of health," said Chris Pope, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy group.

Why is more coverage for people a bad thing? Why pay taxes if we don't receive benefits? Why shouldn't gender-affirming care be covered for a trans person who pays the same taxes as a cisgender person who'll use Medicare to pay for their ED pills, which are technically gender-affirming care? (Medicare Part D prescription drug plans cover generic Viagra, go figure)

Please note, that after falling during the Trump administration, enrollment in ACA plans soared under Biden, hitting record highs each year. More than 24 million people are enrolled in ACA plans for 2025 (including me).

Trump has yet to win Senate confirmation for any of his picks to lead federal health agencies, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist and former brain worm incubator he nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

"We're getting rid of all of the cancer -- I call it cancer -- the cancer caused by the Biden administration," Trump told reporters as he signed executive orders to make it harder for people with cancer to get healthcare (pesky pre-existing conditions).