Trump’s Challenges to Health Care, Medical Research, and Clean Air and Water
I grew up with an old saying: “If you have your health, you have everything.” As I get older, I am finding more truth in that.
The Amazingly Destructive Trump Administration presents a multi-pronged destruction of the health care of poor Americans, of Medical research that will help all of us, of clean air that we all need to breath, and of clean water that we all need to drink.
The revised Republican ACHA healthcare act was passed in haste by the House, without a projection of its effects done by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). The Senate was waiting for the CBO estimate before they started drafting their own plan. Now the CBO report is in. The new AHCA would drive 14 million currently covered Americans out of healthcare in a year, and wild drive out 24 million in a decade. This is on top of the 25 million Americans that still aren’t covered. This isn’t much different than the first AHCA which would have made the policies unaffordable to 23 million Americans. In the meantime, Trump is threatening to cut federal contributions to Medicaid, in order to force this act on us. The cuts in coverage are to cover about $600 billion in tax cuts.
Trump still will cut the EPA budget by over 30% to $5.7 billion. The Budget would also eliminate 23% of the agency’s 15,000 staff.
The data here on science cuts come from a Nature News article that is freely open to the public, and covers the science budgets.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be cut a steep 18% in one year, from $31.8 billion in 2017 to $26 billion in 2018. This will be done by lowering the indirect costs of institutions that house the research, such as Universities and Hospitals. Somebody has to pick up those costs.
Fortunately, Congressmen did not give into such cuts in their 5-month completion of the 2017 budget. They also are promising not to give in for 2018. Why the administration did not adapt to what the Congress will pass in their more complete 2018 budget is not known. It certainly does not make the administration look good right now, even if they plan to compromise later.
