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Trump Opens Door to Medicare Cuts After Backing GOP Plan to Gut Medicaid
The president's contradictory statements in recent days "cannot mask his betrayal to millions of people across the country who believed he would lower their costs," said one critic.
Feb 20, 2025
Beltway journalists reported Thursday on "confusion" spreading throughout the White House and the Republican caucus following U.S. President Donald Trump's endorsement of a House plan that would slash Medicaid and comments from the administration that suggested Trump will not protect Medicare—but Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocates said the message was crystal clear.
" Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to cut taxes for billionaires like themselves—and pay for it by gutting Medicare and Medicaid," Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said in a statement. "They don't care if families have to take on crushing debt to pay for care, as long as it makes them much, much richer."
Mitchell offered the translation of contradictory statements from Trump that came Wednesday, with the president expressing support for a House resolution aimed at imposing his border and energy policies and extending his 2017 tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthy.
The House resolution "implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it," the president said, suggesting his opposition to a Senate proposal that would push for two separate bills.
Calling for $2 trillion in spending cuts in order to fill the $4.5 trillion hole the tax cuts would blow in the deficit, the proposal would include potential cuts of $880 billion to Medicaid, which have made some Republicans in Congress express doubt that they could support the package without angering millions of constituents who rely on the low-income healthcare program.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is among the Republicans who have expressed "concerns" about the "very deep cuts to Medicaid" included in the House proposal, which Larry Levitt of Kaiser Family Foundation said would "go well beyond eliminating fraud and abuse."
Hours before he endorsed the House plan, Trump said neither Medicaid nor Medicare "is going to be touched" in the Republican budget, and his later comments reportedly came as a surprise to his top aides who were unaware of what Medicaid cuts Trump would be willing to approve.
The White House further muddled its message about how it intends to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, including those who helped fund Trump's election campaign, when a spokesperson attempted to clarify that the government healthcare programs relied on by more than 100 million people would be preserved.
"The Trump administration is committed to protecting Medicare and Medicaid while slashing the waste, fraud, and abuse within those programs—reforms that will increase efficiency and improve care for beneficiaries," White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Politico Wednesday, before sending an updated statement that left out the mention of Medicare.
The administration's attempt to remove Medicare from the conversation about possible cuts didn't get past Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who said the original comments indicated "a war on Medicare."
Voters who supported Trump because they believed his promises to protect Medicaid and Medicare "were had," according to the administration's latest comments, said Helaine Olen of the American Economic Liberties Project.
"By endorsing House Republicans' budget plan, Trump once again is putting the interests of the ultrawealthy and corporations over the needs of everyday Americans, supporting a plan that devastates the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk. "Trump's statements to the contrary cannot mask his betrayal to millions of people across the country who believed he would lower their costs. Medicaid is more than a pawn in the administration's game: It's an essential program for millions of Americans of all ages."
Trump's newly confirmed commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, further made the White House's objectives clear when he claimed on Fox News that Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are rife with "$1 trillion of waste, fraud, and abuse" and will be slashed.
"We have almost $4 trillion in entitlements and no one's ever looked at it before," said Lutnick. "You know Social Security is wrong, you know Medicaid and Medicare are wrong, so he's gonna cut $1 trillion, and then we're gonna get rid of all these tax scams that hammer Americans."
"Howard Lutnick, Trump's billionaire buddy turned commerce secretary, has confirmed that the administration was simply lying to MAGA supporters about not touching Social Security and Medicare," wrote Malcolm Ferguson at The New Republic on Thursday. "This is a long cry from the party that was telling its voters—many of whom are elderly conservatives on government benefits—that they wouldn't lay a finger on the programs they need most."
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Even Those Who Believe Tariffs Are Useful Think Trump's Trade War Makes 'Zero Sense'
One economist warned the tariffs would amount to the "largest tax increase... that has ever been imposed" on working-class families.
Feb 03, 2025
The trade war that U.S. President Donald Trump launched over the weekend by announcing sweeping new tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China drew intense criticism from experts and analysts across the ideological spectrum, including those who believe strategically deployed tariffs can help protect domestic jobs and workers.
"Tariffs are a powerful, effective tool to deliver certain goals. But Trump's Canada/China/Mexico tariffs make zero sense. And even undermine tariffs' legit uses," Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote on social media late Sunday, expressing agreement with United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.
Fain said in a
statement that the UAW "supports aggressive tariff action to protect American manufacturing jobs as a good first step to undoing decades of anti-worker trade policy," pointing specifically to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its successor agreement that Trump negotiated during his first White House term.
The union does not, however, "support using factory workers as pawns in a fight over immigration or drug policy," Fain continued. "The national emergency we face is not about drugs or immigration, but about a working class that has fallen behind for generations while corporate America exploits workers abroad and consumers at home for massive Wall Street paydays."
The officially stated purpose for Trump's 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports and 10% tariffs on Chinese imports is to confront what the White House described as the "extraordinary threat" posed by the movement of migrants and drugs across the southern and northern U.S. borders.
But Wallach argued Sunday that using tariffs to address immigration and the flow of drugs "is like trying surgery using a saxophone—wrong tool!"
"After decades of an American trade policy run by and for the largest corporations and to the detriment of American workers, independent farmers, and small businesses, we certainly do need a new approach," she added. "But simply imposing 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and another 10% on China will not rebuild American manufacturing/create U.S. manufacturing jobs or raise wages. Particularly, if such tariffs can be axed, lowered, or upped at the president's whim for reasons unrelated to trade/jobs."
"While tariffs can play a constructive role in protecting U.S. jobs and enforcing labor and environmental standards when part of a strategic industrial policy, Trump's approach is neither strategic nor appropriate."
Trump told reporters late last week that he is "not looking for a concession" in response to the new tariffs, which prompted swift retaliation from Canada, Mexico, and China.
The announced tariffs, which are set to take effect on Tuesday, also shook U.S. and global equity markets as Trump threatened additional duties against imports from European Union nations and admitted Americans could experience "some pain" stemming from the trade war. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that her country reached an agreement with Trump to delay implementation of the tariffs on Mexican imports for a month, reportedly in exchange for the deployment of 10,000 Mexican soldiers to the country's northern border.
Contrary to Trump's insistence that tariffs are paid by targeted nations, they are in fact paid by U.S. importers, who then either eat the costs or pass them on to consumers through higher prices. Economist Dean Baker noted that the new tariffs amount to "a tax increase of roughly $200 billion a year ($1,600 per family) that will overwhelmingly be paid by moderate-income and middle-income families."
"It is the largest tax increase on them that has ever been imposed," Baker wrote Sunday. "And retaliation from both countries is likely to impose additional costs."
Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement that "no matter the intractable problem, Trump's go-to playbook is to bully our neighbors through tariffs and to scapegoat immigrants."
"Instead of addressing the actual causes or seeking real solutions to the complex public health crisis surrounding fentanyl, Trump jumps to impose damaging and self-defeating across-the-board tariffs and to spout more hateful rhetoric that dehumanizes our immigrant neighbors," said St. Louis. "While tariffs can play a constructive role in protecting U.S. jobs and enforcing labor and environmental standards when part of a strategic industrial policy, Trump's approach is neither strategic nor appropriate."
"Using tariffs to bully countries to advance an anti-immigrant and anti-humanitarian agenda will do nothing to support U.S. workers and will make our immigrant neighbors less safe," she added.
The tariffs also drew backlash from the right-wing Wall Street Journaleditorial board, which slammed the president for launching "the dumbest trade war in history."
"Bad policy has damaging consequences," the editorial board wrote late Sunday, "whether or not Mr. Trump chooses to admit it."
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FTC Report Shows Big Pharma Middlemen Jack Up Prices by Up to 7,736%
Pharmacy benefit managers "are raking in billions in excess revenue—$7.3 billion over just five years—while squeezing independent pharmacies and leaving patients and health plan sponsors with skyrocketing costs."
Jan 14, 2025
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday published the second part of its investigation into how prescription drug middlemen are marking up the prices of specialty generic drugs dispensed at their affiliated pharmacies by hundreds—and in some cases, thousands—of percent, underscoring what advocates say is the need for urgent action by policymakers.
The FTC's second interim staff report on consolidated pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) found that the three largest of these middlemen—CVS Health's Caremark Rx, Cigna Group's Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth Group's OptumRx—"marked up two specialty generic cancer drugs by thousands of percent and then paid their affiliated pharmacies hundreds of millions of dollars of dispensing revenue in excess of estimated acquisition costs for each drug annually."
"Of the specialty generic drugs analyzed in this report and dispensed by the 'Big Three' PBMs' affiliated pharmacies for commercial health plan members between 2020 and 2022, 63% were reimbursed at rates marked up by more than 100% over their estimated acquisition cost... while 22% were marked up by more than 1,000%," the report states.
"For the pulmonary hypertension drug tadalafil (generic Adcirca), for example, pharmacies purchased the drug at an average of $27 in 2022, yet the Big Three PBMs marked up the drug by $2,079 and paid their affiliated pharmacies $2,106, on average, for a 30-day supply of the medication on commercial claims," the publication notes. That's a staggering average markup of 7,736%.
"The FTC's second interim report lays bare the blatant profiteering by PBM giants."
"Such significant markups allowed the Big Three PBMs and their affiliated specialty pharmacies to generate more than $7.3 billion in revenue from dispensing drugs in excess of the drugs' estimated acquisition costs from 2017-22," the FTC said. "The Big Three PBMs netted such significant revenues all while patient, employer, and other healthcare plan sponsor payments for drugs steadily increased annually."
The new analysis follows a July 2024 report that revealed Big Three PBM-affiliated pharmacies received 68% of the dispensing revenue generated by specialty drugs in 2023, a 14% increase from 2016.
"The FTC staff's second interim report finds that the three major pharmacy benefit managers hiked costs for a wide range of lifesaving drugs, including medications to treat heart disease and cancer," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement Tuesday. "The FTC should keep using its tools to investigate practices that may inflate drug costs, squeeze independent pharmacies, and deprive Americans of affordable, accessible healthcare—and should act swiftly to stop any illegal conduct."
Khan's time as chair is limited. Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration is next week and he has named Andrew Ferguson as the next FTC chair. As Ferguson is already on the commission, his elevation to chair won't require Senate confirmation.
Greg Lopes, spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a PBM lobby group, said Tuesday that "it's clear this report again fails to consider the entirety of the prescription drug supply chain and makes sweeping assertions about the role of PBMs disconnected from a full appreciation of their critical cost-saving role for employers, unions, taxpayers, and patients."
Last September, the FTC sued the Big Three and their affiliated group purchasing organizations for allegedly "engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs, impaired patients' access to lower list price products, and shifted the cost of high insulin list prices to vulnerable patients."
FTC Office of Policy Planning Director Hannah Garden-Monheit said Tuesday that the problem of PBM price inflation "is growing at an alarming rate, which means there is an urgent need for policymakers to address it."
To that end, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act of 2023, a bill backed by the AARP aimed at increasing transparency and "holding PBMs accountable for deceptive and unfair practices that drive up prescription drug costs and force independent pharmacies out of business."
"This report is a call to action for policymakers to dismantle these exploitative schemes."
Responding to the FTC report, Emma Freer, senior policy analyst for healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project—a corporate accountability and antitrust advocacy group—said in a statement Tuesday that "the FTC's second interim report lays bare the blatant profiteering by PBM giants, which are marking up lifesaving drugs like cancer, HIV, and multiple sclerosis treatments by thousands of percent and forcing patients to pay the price."
"By steering prescriptions for the most expensive specialty generic drugs to their own pharmacies, PBMs are raking in billions in excess revenue—$7.3 billion over just five years—while squeezing independent pharmacies and leaving patients and health plan sponsors with skyrocketing costs," Freer added. "This report is a call to action for policymakers to dismantle these exploitative schemes, outlaw the rebate system driving up prices, and restore fairness and affordability to the U.S. healthcare system."
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