Trump’s Big Medicaid Cuts Are About to Get Very Real

[Dekster]

Here in Virginia, the hospitals most at risk of closing due to these cuts are largely in MAGA country. I don't expect the state to step up and save them now that we are under Blue Rule. It really was a wrong-headed policy by the GOP though I will gladly acknowledge that Trump didn't support the cuts so much as accept them as part of the Fabulous Fat Cat Bill to get his tax cuts locked in.

It really doesn't have to be an either or. The federal government could save money by dismantling other ACA requirements and bring costs down instead of cutting vulnerable people completely off from medical care. I mean the only reasons some of the bronze plans cost more and are worse than the now disallowed catastrophic plans of the past are because of all the freaking mandates giving women free everything and forcing us to subsidize twinkie infusions for 600 pound diabetics and crap.

 

[berg80]

Here in Virginia, the hospitals most at risk of closing due to these cuts are largely in MAGA country. I don't expect the state to step up and save them now that we are under Blue Rule. It really was a wrong-headed policy by the GOP though I will gladly acknowledge that Trump didn't support the cuts so much as accept them as part of the Fabulous Fat Cat Bill to get his tax cuts locked in.

It really doesn't have to be an either or. The federal government could save money by dismantling other ACA requirements and bring costs down instead of cutting vulnerable people completely off from medical care. I mean the only reasons some of the bronze plans cost more and are worse than the now disallowed catastrophic plans of the past are because of all the freaking mandates giving women free everything and forcing us to subsidize twinkie infusions for 600 pound diabetics and crap.

This Is the Biggest Culprit for High Health Care Spending​

Republicans and Democrats have been eager to haul insurance executives to hearings and grill them. President Trump tried to justify removing subsidies for Americans to buy health insurance — a policy that will lead to 4 million people losing coverage and thousands of deaths — by arguing it would mean less money going to insurers.

Responding to the wrongdoing of insurers is imperative, but it won’t do much to address the unsustainable cost of health care. We are directing our anger at the part of the system that is most visible and frustrating (insurers’ restrictions on care) while ignoring the part of the health system that is most responsible for high costs and economic pain: hospital prices. At a time when two-thirds of the public are worried about the price of health care — a greater share than are worried about affording groceries, gas or housing — we need to have an honest conversation about what is driving high premiums and how to lower them.

Americans receive a similar amount of care as people in other countries, but we pay much higher prices for the care we receive. Take hip replacements. Hospitals in the United States earn $29,000 on average for a replacement covered by private insurance and $16,000 for one covered by Medicare. In Germany, the public system of nonprofit insurers, which covers 90 percent of the population, pays hospitals $9,400.

Hospital prices are the leading driver of the 320 percent increase in insurance premiums that Americans have experienced over the past 25 years. Since 2000, prices at hospitals have grown faster than prices in virtually any other sector of the economy. They have grown three times as fast as inflation and twice as fast as prescription drugs and doctor visits.

The reason hospital prices are so high: hospitals’ accumulation of market power, which brings them more bargaining heft when they negotiate prices with insurers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/opinion/health-care-hospitals-insurance.html

To solve the problem we need a Medicare for all model so the government can negotiate down what hospitals charge.