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Warfare Over Healthcare: My Premium Skyrockets to $2600 Per Month
For the first time in my adult life, I will be uninsured, joining the millions who have navigated this risky reality for years. And for what? Multi-trillion-dollar wars and endless tax breaks for the wealthy.
Nov 25, 2025
Next year, an estimated 5 million people will be priced out of health insurance in the United States. I am one of them. When I went to renew my family’s policy, I was shocked to discover my premium had gone up to $2,600 per month, a price my household of four simply cannot afford. For the first time in my adult life, I will be uninsured, joining the millions who have navigated this risky reality for years. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when health insurance already makes access to healthcare costly with extremely unrealistic deductibles and high out-of-pocket costs. Yet, as a woman in my 40s with a family history of breast cancer, going without coverage is a gamble with my life.
After some number-crunching, we concluded that we could afford to carry insurance for only 2 of the 4 of us. This left us with an inhuman choice: to decide whose lives we value more. This is not just an abstract dilemma that many households are facing; it is necropolitics in action, the state-sanctioned power to decide who lives and dies. This crisis is a direct result of political choices made by those elected to serve the people and their needs. By allowing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies to expire, our elected officials are acting as death panels, comfortable with making a decision that will kill off tens of thousands of their own constituents. This is not hyperbole; studies show that over 40,000 people in the US die annually due to a lack of healthcare.
However, these domestic necropolitics are merely a symptom of the US’ larger death wish: a war economy that serves weapons manufacturers whose job is to create machines of death and destruction. As a nation, we manage to muster up trillions each year to fund global conflict and destruction while claiming the price of keeping our own alive is too much. Our government’s priorities could not be any clearer. For example, in the recent government shutdown, the National Priorities Project reported that the Senate managed to find bipartisan unity to approve a $32 billion increase for the Pentagon as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passing it with an overwhelming 77-20 vote. Yet, they refused to extend the healthcare subsidies for even a single year, a measure that would have cost roughly $35 billion, a well-worth sum that would keep millions, including myself, from losing their health insurance.
This is not a one-off, though. Congress passes an ever-growing Pentagon budget every year, now set to exceed a trillion dollars. The 2026 NDAA will be voted on in mid-December. Around the same time, there are whispers of a vote on the healthcare subsidies that could save millions of families from our nightmare. However, only one of these bills is certain to pass with little debate, and it is not the one that will save lives.
We live in a system that values war and conflict over the protection of life, and every day they decide that it is okay for more and more of us to die.
To understand the deadly consequences of these priorities, consider that the annual cost of continuing the ACA subsidies is about $30 billion, or roughly $82 million per day. The daily cost of operating a single US aircraft carrier is approximately $8 million. This means that the cost of one carrier for a single day is equivalent to about 10% of the daily cost of providing healthcare subsidies for the entire nation. In other words, the funds spent on one warship for just one day could instead ensure a day of healthcare access for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
The math makes it clear that the US government is not in the business of serving the people and their needs. Instead, our elected officials sit in high places, callously deciding who they are willing to kill off in order protect their personal vested interest, whether it be Palestinians in Gaza, children in Sudan, boaters in Venezuela, migrants seeking a better life, or hard-working families desperately trying to make ends meet in an economy that only serves a few rather than the many. We live in a system that values war and conflict over the protection of life, and every day they decide that it is okay for more and more of us to die. It is necropolitics, all the way down, and we are all on the chopping block. Unless…
To learn more about how to fund the people's needs over war manufacturers' greed, please visit our Cut The Pentagon website for more ways to take action.
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The US People Don't Want a War on Venezuela
Roughly two-thirds of American adults said they oppose an invasion of Venezuela and only 15% support one. But will this be enough to stop Trump?
Nov 23, 2025
The White House is ready for war.
As the Trump administration’s made-for-Hollywood strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats have dominated the news, the Pentagon has been positioning military assets in the Caribbean and Latin America and reactivating bases in the region. More recently, the Washington Post reported that high-level meetings were held about a possible imminent attack on Venezuela and the New York Times has learned that the president gave authorization for CIA operations there.
There is one problem: Americans don’t seem to be very enthusiastic.
While voters returned Donald Trump to office in 2024 based on a host of campaign promises, his faithful took his long-voiced complaints about spending on foreign aid and entanglement in overseas wars as vows to focus on the homeland. A range of Americans are in sync with his past statements about avoiding war; opposition to military intervention abroad is common for the left and right. Simply put, the public is not interested in going to war. Indeed, one recent poll found that just 15% of American adults support invading Venezuela.
A 2023 survey found a souring of views of military intervention more broadly, with growing numbers believing that intervention by the US tends to "worsen situations."
Some see Trump's Venezuela moves as an attempt to distract from domestic policy failures or the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, but his actions can't be dismissed as wagging the dog. Trump has shown himself willing to engage with militarism. It's not just "drug boats," and it's not just Venezuela. He has spent 2025 belying the myth, which has persisted over his three campaigns for president, that he is averse to war-making.
What Polls Say About Venezuela
The public has mixed views on some of the Trump administration's specific actions toward Venezuela. Asked in a recent YouGov poll about the US Navy's presence in Caribbean waters, for example, the percentage who approve (30%) was not much lower than the percentage who disapprove (37%).
Framing its actions against the South American nation as narcotics enforcement seems to have benefited the administration: A Harvard/CAPS poll in early October found 71% of registered voters in favor of "the US destroying boats bringing drugs into the United States from South America." Different wording—and perhaps media coverage of the continued boat strikes raising issues of their necessity, legality, and effect—could help explain why a Reuters/Ipsos poll in mid-November found only 29% answered yes to the question, "Should the U.S. government kill suspected drug traffickers abroad without judicial process?"
Importantly, however, in YouGov's survey, roughly two-thirds of American adults said they oppose an invasion of Venezuela and, as noted above, only 15% support one. Over half oppose the US using the military to overthrow the country's president, Nicolás Maduro.
A 2023 survey found a souring of views of military intervention more broadly, with growing numbers believing that intervention by the US tends to "worsen situations." Respondents seem to have based this on more recent examples, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars. None of these interventions were seen by the majority of those polled as "successful" uses of US forces abroad.
A Cost-Benefit Analysis
Overall, Americans do not want to get, to use Trump's own words, "bogged down" in foreign wars. Public opinion on intervention appears driven by a cost-benefit analysis as John Mueller, professor of political science emeritus at Ohio State University describes it. This may be why some Americans are more willing to accept action in the form of targeted strikes such as the boat bombings and limited displays of military might.
In the end, Trump may not attack Venezuela, but it likely won't be because the people are against it.
Since the Cold War and especially the 9/11 attacks, the US has become increasingly militarized. One measure of this, of course, is government spending. The Costs of War project at The Watson School of International and Public Affairs estimates that the US has spent $8 trillion as a result of the post-9/11 wars. The $22 billion in support for Israel’s war in Gaza since October 7, 2023 is one of the latest and most egregious instances of the US’ support for a military first approach.
Unfortunately, the official end of the post-9/11 wars was not the end of their financial costs to ordinary Americans. The percent of the discretionary federal budget devoted to the military continues to rise and at the expense of domestic programs. Pentagon spending alone in 2026 will jump to well over $1 trillion. Though many of the economic costs of war are hidden or deferred to an indeterminate future—especially when they are funded through deficit spending—Americans still rightly worry about getting involved in costly conflicts like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Can Public Opinion Halt Trump's Militarism?
Many have taken note of how Congress' passage of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force has helped concentrate power in the executive, enabling swifter, unilateral military deployment by the commander-in-chief. With the AUMF, Congress relinquished its constitutionally assigned war powers and ceded to the president its duty to decide whether, when, and where to use the military to combat terrorism. Since then, the executive branch has conducted counterterrorism activities in an astounding 78 countries.
Despite Americans' low trust in Congress, they nonetheless want the president to seek congressional approval before going to war. Feeding their mistrust, Congress has failed to respond to them on this crucial issue.
Look at how a compliant Congress has abdicated responsibility for oversight of the bombings in the Caribbean—which have now killed more than 83 people—as the Pentagon arrays warships, missiles, drones, and jet fighters in the region. Senate Republicans voted down legislation that would have required Trump to get their approval for any attacks on Venezuela, blatantly ignoring the disapproval of a public they are meant to represent.
So the bombings and the buildup continue, with Trump matter-of-factly telling a journalist, "We’re just going to kill people" without seeking congressional approval.
In the end, Trump may not attack Venezuela, but it likely won't be because the people are against it. He is in the process of commandeering all armed capacities of the US government, military, and law enforcement to serve his purposes foreign and domestic. Reasserting the rights of the people, including the right to peace, requires Congress to aggressively reassert its constitutional duty and the citizenry to demand its will be met.
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After 'Disgusting Display' at White House, Omar Says Congress Must Stop Trump Sale of F-35s to Saudis
"Trump is prioritizing weapons-contractor profits and his own family’s business interests," said US Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Nov 19, 2025
The deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said Tuesday that lawmakers should pull out all the stops to prevent US President Donald Trump from selling F-35s to Saudi Arabia following Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's White House visit.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called the White House reception for bin Salman, who is commonly known as MBS, a "disgusting display" and a "new low in longstanding US support for the repressive monarchy," pointing to Trump's whitewashing of the crown prince's role in the horrific murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Omar also condemned Trump's attack on ABC News reporter Mary Bruce, who asked about Khashoggi's murder during the crown prince's White House visit.
"It is truly disturbing that the president of the United States dismissed Khashoggi’s entrapment, murder, and dismemberment at the hands of MBS' assassins simply as, 'things happen,'" said the Minnesota Democrat.
Omar called on fellow lawmakers to join her in working to block Trump's "reckless and corrupt deals" with the Saudis, including his proposed sale of F-35 fighter jets.
"With announced sales of F-35 warplanes and billions in financial investments, Trump is prioritizing weapons-contractor profits and his own family’s business interests, including Jared Kushner’s private equity firm that took $2 billion from MBS," said Omar, who noted that the Saudis have used US arms to devastating effect in Yemen.
The details of Trump's proposed F-35 sale are not yet fully clear, but the US president indicated on Tuesday that the agreement would not include any conditions. The Saudi regime is one of the world's worst human rights abusers, wielding the death penalty and other repressive tactics to violently crush dissent.
"We’re going to have a deal. They’ve going purchase F-35s," Trump said Tuesday. "They’re buying them from Lockheed and it’s a great plane."
Once Congress is formally notified of the proposed sale, lawmakers will have a limited window to consider a resolution of disapproval that, if passed, would block the transaction.
"While the defense industry and American billionaires will profit handsomely with the gifts Trump is doling out to MBS. The American people will be left holding the bill."
During Tuesday's meeting, Trump announced that his administration has designated Saudi Arabia as a "major non-NATO ally," a status that enhances military cooperation between the two countries. Israel is also a "major non-NATO ally" of the US.
Omar said Tuesday that "no American soldiers may be sent into harm’s way to defend Saudi Arabia" as part of the agreement "without a debate and vote of authorization from Congress."
"My Progressive Caucus colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that this remains the case," she added.
The human rights group DAWN, an organization founded by Khashoggi, also voiced concerns about the security pact, warning in a statement that Trump is working to "protect a reckless, impulsive dictator, all in the interests of personal and corporate gains."
"While the defense industry and American billionaires will profit handsomely with the gifts Trump is doling out to MBS," the group added, "the American people will be left holding the bill."
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