Donald Trump United States President Early measures in healthcare signals its probable intention to delete some programs from Biden’s era to reduce medication costs and expand coverage under the public insurance program.
The orders he issued shortly after entering the White House forced policy creators, health managers and patients’ advocates to try to read tea leaves to determine what to follow. The guidelines, although less extensive than the orders he issued at the beginning of his first term, provide a possible folder of the path that health researchers say they could increase the number of unexplained Americans and weaken a safety net for people with low incomes.
However, Trump’s initial commands will not have a current effect. His administration will have to take further regulatory steps to completely reverse Biden’s policy, and the actions have left the unclear direction that the new president intends to manage the US health system.
“Everyone is looking for signals about what Trump could do about a series of health problems. On the early EOs [executive orders]Trump does not show his tickets, ”said Larry Levitt, Executive Vice President of Health Policy at KFF, organization for research, surveys and news of health policy involving KFF Health News.
A rush of Executive commands Other actions that Trump betrayed the first days of re -arrival were involved in the abolition of his predecessor’s directive, former President Joe Biden, who promoted a reduction in drug costs and expanding the coverage under the coverage Affordable Care Act and Medicaid.
The executive commands “Generally nothing more than an internal memorandum that says, ‘Hey, the agency, can you do something?’ “There may be a reason for concern, but that’s the end.”
That’s because amendments to the established law such as Aca or programs such as Medicaid generally require the adoption of new rules or the action of the congress, and any of them may take months. Trump is yet to win Senate confirmation For any of his choices to run federal health agencies including Robert F Kennedy Jran activist against vaccines and a former Democratic Presidential candidate who nominated to run the Ministry of Health and Social Services (HHS). On January 20, he appointed Dorothy Fink, a doctor who runs the HHS Office for Women’s Health, as an acting department secretary.
During Biden’s mandate, his administration has made changes in accordance with his health orders, including the extension of the ACA enrollment period, increasing funding for groups that help people with enrollment and support Law on Reduction of Inflationwho increased subsidies to help people buy cover. After the fall during the Trump administration, the enrollment in the Aca plans jumped under the bidet, reaching record values every year. More than 24 million people are involved in the plans of the Affordable Care Act for 2025.
Drug command that Trump canceled has invited the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services Test ways to lower the cost of medication costs, such as a lump sum fee of $ 2 for some generic medicines in Medicare, a health program for people of 65 and more years, and an attempt to achieve better prices by joining certain expensive cellular and gene therapies.
This could mean that Trump expects to do less at the prices of drugs in this period or even cancel the negotiations on the prices of medicines in Medicare.
The White House did not respond to the comment request.
Biden’s experiments in the lowing price of medicines have not fully come to life, said Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute, the right -wing research group. Antos said he was a little confused by Trump’s executive order on the abolition of the pilot program, given that he supported the idea of binding the costs of drugs in the US with lower prices that pay other nations.
“As you know, Trump is a big fan of that,” Antos said. “Lowing the price of medication is a thing that people are easily identified with.”
In other moves and Trump canceled Biden’s commands about racial and gender equality and issued an order claiming that there are only two sexes, male and female. HHS under Biden’s administration supported his native affirmed health care for transgender persons and provided guidelines on the protection of civil rights for transgender young people. Trump’s epistle of gender has increased concern within the LGBTQ+ community to strive to limit such care.
“The administration predicted that it would not be able to protect and that it would strive to discriminate against transgender persons and anyone else who considers ‘others’,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a senior advisor and a health strategist in Lambda Legal, a group of civil rights to advocate. . “We are ready to respond to the discriminatory administration acts, as we have already done with great success, and to defend the possibility of transgender persons to approach the care they need, including Medicaid and Medicare.”
Trump also stopped new regulations that were in development until the new administration was brought to mind. He could give up some proposals that Biden’s administration should have finalized, including expanded coverage of obesity through Medicare and Medicaid and a rule that would limit nicotine levels in tobacco products, Katie Keith, professor at Georgetown University who was Deputy Director of the Council for George White house policy under Biden, she wrote in an article for Health Affair Forefront.
“Interestingly, he did not disturb the three executives of President Biden and the Presidential Memorandum on reproductive health care”She wrote.
However, Trump ordered the top in his administration to seek additional commands or memorandums to be canceled. (He recalled Biden’s order that created the Council for Gender Policy.)
Democrats criticized Trump’s health proceedings. A spokesman for the National Committee of the Democratic Party, Alex Floyd, said in a statement that “Trump again proves that he lied to the American people and that he did not care about reducing costs – only what is best for him and his ultra -heart friends.”
Trump’s decision to abolish the Executive Regulation from Biden’s era aimed at improving the affordable care law and Medicaida probably hints at the upcoming cuts and changes in both programs, some political experts say. His administration has previously opened the door to the requirements for work at Medicaid – a federal state program for adults with low -income, children and people with disabilities – and previously issued guidelines that allow countries to limit the federal funding of Medicaid. More than 79 million people are covered by Medicaid and the associated children’s health insurance program.
“Medicaid will focus because he has become so widespread,” said Chris Pope, a senior associate at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative political group. “It grew after a pandemic. The provisions are expanded, such as using social determinants of health. ”
The administration could re -evaluate the steps taken by Biden’s administration to allow Medicaid to pay for everyday costs for which some countries claimed to affect users’ health, including air conditioners, meals and housing.
One of Trump’s Directives requires agencies to urgent price reduction and “eliminate unnecessary administrative costs and the requirements of the search for rents that increase the costs of health care”. (Looking for rent is an economic concept that describes the efforts to use the political system for financial profit without the creation of others for society.)
“It is not clear what this is about and it will be interesting to see how agencies will answer,” Keith wrote in her health care article.
Politics experts such as Edwin’s Park from Georgetown University also noted that, separately, Republicans work on budget proposals that could lead to large cuts in Medicaid financing, in part to pay for tax reduction.
Sarah Lueck, Vice -President of Health Policy at the Budget and Political Priority Center, left -winged research group, also pointed to Congress: “On the one hand, what we see comes from Trump’s executive commands is important because it shows us in which direction they go with changes in politics. But the second mark is that the hill is actively discussing what enters budget legislation. They consider the rather large decreasing of Medicaid. ”
