OpEd in the Berkshire Edge
Nancy Chassman, member of our Steering Committee, published the following OpEd in the Berkshire Edge:
Biden’s and Trump’s stances on healthcare and Medicare — fact vs. fiction
Which candidate has actually demonstrated that he will do the work to protect and expand healthcare? Since both Trump and Biden have served as president, their records offer every voter a window into what they would do if elected in November.
To the editor:
“Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.”
This simple proverb never seemed more important than in this year’s presidential election. As the election gets closer, it feels like the perfect storm. So much divisiveness in America today. Between red states and blue states. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. The cracks are deepening even within the parties: Moderate Republicans struggling to maintain a party now dominated by MAGA; Clinton Democrats and progressives appear to be out of step with each other. Even if you don’t consider yourself a “glass-half-empty” person, it may feel as if the rifts will never heal. The two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, could not be more different from one another. The contrast between the two visions they paint for America is stark. So we American voters might take refuge from this “perfect storm” by staying in our silos. And yet, if we could remove all the noise coming at us from TV and social media, we would likely see that when it comes to many of the so-called kitchen table issues, our views are not so different from one another. It is just a question of which candidate is genuinely working to advance solutions.
Case in point is every American’s desire for safe and affordable healthcare. If we need prescription medicine for a chronic illness, we all hope that the cost is something we can live with. If a loved one needs hospitalization, every one of us hopes they are not bankrupted by the cost. Which candidate has actually demonstrated that he will do the work to protect and expand healthcare? Since both Trump and Biden have served as president, their records offer every voter a window into what they would do if elected in November.
Trump’s campaign position for the 2024 election is that he will protect Medicare. He also made this campaign promise when he ran for president in 2016. But for the duration of his presidency, he did the exact opposite. In 2017, Trump, supported by a Republican majority in the House and Senate, enacted a sprawling tax cut for corporate America. The centerpiece of this complex tax legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, was a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The impact of this giant gift to large corporations was a shrinking of the available funding for Medicare and Social Security by an estimated $595 billion. This Republican strategy to reduce Medicare and Social Security through huge tax cuts, which they fondly call “starving the beast,” allows them to hide their true intentions and falsely claim they are protecting these programs.
Taking a deeper dive into Trump’s actions on Medicare and healthcare while he was president reveals more of this “starve the beast” strategy. Trump’s budget proposals for fiscal years 2018, 2019, and 2020 included enormous cuts to the funding of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Fortunately, these proposed cuts were scrapped by Congress. And throughout his term in office, Trump tried to do away with the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare). In fact, the 2017 Trump tax legislation repealed the federal individual mandate requirement, a significant funding component of Obamacare. By doing this, it was projected that the number of Americans without healthcare would increase by 13 million by 2027.
The Affordable Care Act was enacted during the Obama Administration under the leadership of former President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden. Obamacare advanced the goal of health equity for all Americans more than any piece of legislation in decades. It made health insurance more affordable for everyone by providing subsidies to Americans with income below a certain threshold. It expanded the Medicaid program to cover all adults with income below 138 percent of the poverty level. As a result of Obamacare, health plans cannot deny people coverage or charge them more because they have a preexisting condition.
While Trump was mostly unsuccessful in repealing Obamacare or getting his budget cuts to Medicare approved by Congress, he did manage to deliver a significant blow to Medicare when he signed an executive order in October 2019 that restricted seniors citizens’ choice of healthcare providers and shifted Medicare programs in the direction of private plans. Ironically, this executive order was called “Protecting and Improving Medicare for our Nation’s Seniors.” In contrast, President Biden has been relentless in preserving Medicare and expanding on the important accomplishments of Obamacare during his presidency. In March 2021, just two months after he took office, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to help Americans recover from the pandemic. Among the many benefits this legislation implemented were provisions to assist families in meeting healthcare expenses. The ARP increased the number of people eligible for financial assistance to help pay for healthcare coverage. It also lowered the premiums for health plans in which individuals were already enrolled.
In 2022, working with Congress in his signature bipartisan fashion, President Biden shepherded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA focused on the spiraling costs of prescription drugs, particularly for senior citizens. The IRA instituted lower prescription drug prices and established a cap on insulin at $35 per month for Medicare recipients. This led drug companies to drastically reduce insulin prices for Americans not benefitting from the $35 cap. The IRA also provided that Medicare recipients would have no co-pay for certain vaccinations and a yearly cap of $2,000 on out-of-pocket prescription drugs starting in 2025.
Unlike Trump’s budget proposals, President Biden’s budget initiatives throughout his presidency sought to build on Obamacare and strengthen Medicare. If approved, Biden’s 2024 budget proposal would extend the life of the Medicare trust fund by 25 years (thereby making it solvent into the 2050s). The 2024 budget plan would further enhance Medicare solvency by eliminating certain loopholes on Medicare taxes for individuals earning over $400,000 per year.
Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, or consider yourself moderate, MAGA, or progressive, having affordable healthcare is a fundamental need and right of every human being. President Joe Biden is the candidate with a proven record of protecting and expanding healthcare for every American. Don’t listen to what they say; look at what they’ve done.
Nancy Chassman
Becket