Last night, Donald Trump showed the nation just how out of touch he truly is. The “Dow is at 50,000,” he gleefully cheered at the lectern, celebrating Wall Street and his billionaire donors as they grow richer and richer. But the American people know — despite last night’s lies and theatrics — that health care is getting more and more expensive in Donald Trump’s unaffordable America. They know that Trump and Republicans gutted nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires. Per KFF’s Larry Levitt: “President Trump didn’t mention at all in his SOTU the most significant changes to health care he and Republicans in Congress have engineered: the biggest Medicaid cuts ever, expiration of enhanced ACA premium subsidies, and scaling back recommended vaccines.” After last night’s theater, it must be clear that Trump and his allies are feeling the heat. But no amount of showboating and gaslighting changed the reality of the health care crisis facing the nation — a crisis that coverage shows his policies are driving.
The New York Times: Trump’s Claims to Always Protect Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid “False.” “Mr. Trump has long promised to avoid changes to Medicare and Social Security […]. But Mr. Trump’s signature legislation, the major tax and domestic policy bill passed last summer, made more than $1 trillion in cuts to the Medicaid program over the next decade, the largest reduction in the program’s history.
Newsweek: Trump’s Claims on TrumpRX “Mathematically Impossible.” “Moreover, Trump’s assertion that some prices have fallen by over 100 percent is mathematically impossible, as a drop of this size would mean the price fell below zero and that vendors were paying customers to take the product.”
NPR: Trump Claims on Payments to Insurance Companies. “Trump’s ‘Great Health Care Plan’ isn’t a comprehensive health policy, but an articulation of policy priorities that Trump has asked Congress to develop into legislation. Even the “catastrophic” or skinny plans preferred by Trump are private insurance plans, and the money paid for them goes to big insurance companies. The only way to stop payments to health insurance companies would be to bolster public health insurance options like Medicaid and Medicare.”
FactCheck.org: Trump “Distorted A Number of Facts” on Health Care. “To partially pay for the tax cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans cut more than $990 billion in spending on Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for people who have low incomes or disabilities.
ABC News: Trump’s Drug Pricing Claims “Need More Context” as the Largest Price Cuts Stem From Medicare Negotiation. “Ben Jolley, senior fellow for healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project, said manufacturers were already under pressure to cut prices and that the discounts apply to limited purchasing channels, not overall list prices. He noted that some of the largest recent price cuts stem from earlier laws, including the Medicare drug price negotiation program under the Inflation Reduction Act and higher Medicaid rebates under the American Rescue Plan, both signed into law by Joe Biden.”
Good Morning America: Trump’s Claims to Stop Payments to Big Insurance Companies “Lacks Evidence. “However, the video message and one-page fact sheet posted by the White House were light on specifics about how much money would actually go directly to Americans, how much funding the plan would require or how the funds would be distributed.”
PolitiFact: Trump’s Claims on Prescription Drugs Dropping as High as ‘300, 400, 500, 600%’ A “Mathematical Hyperbole.” “A 100% drop in a drug’s price means it would cost $0. Prices slashed by 300% to 900% would mean drug manufacturers are paying people who are obtaining medications, instead of the other way around. The discounts on TrumpRx.gov are largely limited to drugs for weight loss and fertility that many Americans have to pay for out of pocket because insurance plans often offer limited or no coverage.”
CNN: “No, U.S. Prescription Drug Prices Are Not the Lowest In The World.” “No, US prescription drug prices are not the lowest in the world…He is not the first president to take action on drug prices. President George W. Bush enacted Medicare drug coverage and under Biden, Democrats, after years of trying, gave Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices.”
NBC News: Trump’s Claim Other Presidents Failed to Lower Drug Prices “False.” “In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, capping insulin at $35 a month for people on Medicare, placing a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for people on Medicare and, for the first time, allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of some of its most expensive medications. By contrast, Trump […] launched the self-pay platform TrumpRx, which so far offers cash prices on 43 medications. Most of those deals, however, don’t change what people with private insurance or Medicare pay at the pharmacy counter. Medicaid patients already tend to pay little or nothing for prescriptions. And many of the drugs listed on TrumpRx have generic versions that cost less than the advertised prices.”