Nearly one year ago, Donald Trump and Republicans made the largest cuts to health care in American history, slashing over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to fund tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. The results have been catastrophic for working families, seniors, children, and rural communities across the country. Nearly 15 million Americans are set to lose coverage. Premiums and out-of-pocket costs have skyrocketed while insurance companies have pulled out of markets, reducing choices and leaving families scrambling to find affordable coverage. Rural hospitals, nursing homes, and community health centers have been pushed to the brink, with many cutting services or shutting their doors entirely. Expectant mothers are traveling farther for maternity care, seniors are losing access to long-term care, and people with disabilities are facing devastating disruptions in critical services.
States are confronting massive budget shortfalls as they attempt to fill the holes Republicans dug in the health care system, forcing painful cuts to programs and care. From Alaska to Alabama to Maine, Americans are delaying care, skipping prescriptions, falling deeper into medical debt because Republicans chose tax giveaways for the ultrawealthy over people’s health and financial security.
This June, Protect Our Care is laying out the pain hard-working families are feeling one year after Republicans’ big, ugly bill. The month features the following theme weeks:
- June 1 – 5: Caregivers Getting Crushed Under GOP Cuts
- June 8 – 12: The Health Care Affordability Crisis
- June 15 – 19: Hospitals In Crisis
- June 22 – 26: Millions Losing Coverage
By the Numbers: Everything Trump Has Done Since Taking Office to Increase Health Care Costs
- Passed legislation kicking 15 million Americans off their health care, burying them in out-of-pocket costs, and drowning them in medical debt.
- Doubled and tripled premiums for millions of hardworking Americans, including small business owners, farmers, and older adults by gutting tax credits for working families.
- Made the largest cuts to health care in history and skyrocketed the burden of uncompensated care, which will likely shift billions of dollars in additional costs to people with employer-based health insurance.
- Gutted over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the ACA, shuttering hospitals and raising prices by an average of $500 per hospital stay at nearby facilities that remain open.
- Put hundreds of hospitals at risk of closing and vulnerable to consolidation and private equity firms, which will expand monopolies and drive up costs.
- Made health insurance too expensive for Americans who buy insurance on their own, causing 1 in 5 enrollees in healthcare.gov states to drop coverage.
- Funneled millions of families into reduced coverage that will force them to pay thousands more each year in health care costs.
- Raised deductibles by an average of 37 percent for people buying insurance on their own.
- Robbed 11 million low-income Americans of zero-dollar premiums.
- Finalized a rule expanding plans that force families to pay an average of $10,000 before insurers pay a single dollar.
- Forced over 1.3 million low-income seniors to pay thousands more each year in premiums and out-of-pocket costs by overturning a regulation.
- Hiked the cost of prescription drug coverage for seniors.
- Handed Big Pharma a multibillion-dollar giveaway, allowing them to charge seniors whatever they want for more drugs.
- Delayed Medicare’s negotiation of the prices of blockbuster cancer drugs, Keytruda and Opdivo, which would have saved seniors with cancer more than $3,000 each year.
- Stopped seniors from being able to purchase popular generic drugs for only $2.
- Instituted ill-advised tariffs that are skyrocketing the cost of premiums and medical devices.
- Boosted Medicare Advantage funding by $13 billion, giving a raise to a program known for rampant overpayments, coverage denials, and limited provider networks.
- Drove an estimated 4.6 million Americans into medical debt and overturned a regulation that would have protected Americans’ credit scores from being affected by medical debt.
- Overturned a rule that would make it easier for working families to enroll in Medicaid, leaving an estimated one million Americans without affordable care.
- Terminated 90 percent of the funding that helps Americans navigate the marketplace and enroll in affordable coverage that meets their needs.
Faces of the GOP Health Care Crisis: Who Are the Millions of Americans Forced to Make Impossible Choices While Costs Skyrocket
Read more at Faces of the GOP Health Care Crisis, Protect Our Care’s state-by-state, interactive digital hub spotlighting more than 400 Americans speaking out and hoping someone, somewhere, will hear their testimony.
In Atlanta, Georgia, instead of focusing on caring for her grandson, who has autism, Pamela Blackstone is worried sick after Republicans skyrocketed her premiums from $80 to more than $400 a month. Like Pamela, over one million Georgians are now facing impossible choices as their health care costs have soared from hundreds to thousands of dollars — forcing families to decide how to keep a roof over their heads, put food on the table, and afford the care that allows them to see a doctor when they’re sick.
