The US president today announced his health care plan, which the White House says will lower prices and premiums, make prices more transparent and hold insurers accountable.
The plan asks Congress to pass a law that would link drug costs to the lowest prices available in most “favored” countries while making more drugs available for purchase without a prescription.
What is included in the “Great Health Care Plan”
Trump’s proposal, called “The Great Healthcare Plan,” includes an insurance cost-cutting program that could cut the most common Obamacare premiums by more than 10 percent and replace government subsidies for insurance with direct payments to Americans.
The plan also requires insurance companies to disclose the profits they make on premiums and how often they turn down claims.
Companies will post price and coverage comparisons on their “plain English” websites, as well as the percentage of their revenue paid out to cover claims, compared to their overhead and profits. They will also be required to publish the percentage of applications they reject and the average waiting time for routine care.
Providers and insurance companies that collect money from the Medicare or Medicaid programs will also have to post their rates and charges.
“Our plan puts you first and puts more money in your pockets,” the 79-year-old president promised in a video posted on the X platform.
THE GREAT HEALTHCARE PLAN.
President Donald J. Trump unveils the Great Healthcare Plan to lower costs and deliver money directly to the American people. 🇺🇸
— The White House (@WhiteHouse)
Will it get congressional approval?
The US president will still have to get approval from Congress, where Republicans have a narrow majority and the Democratic opposition is expected to fight hard to reject the plan.
Trump assures that his plan, which remains quite vague, will allow to reduce the prices of drugs, which remain very high, compared to other developed countries. Because he, like many Republicans, disagrees with the public health insurance system, he wants to redirect the resources that until now fund private insurance companies and give them directly to households, arguing that his system will ultimately benefit them the most.
The cost of health care is a major issue in the run-up to the fall midterm elections, which will see one-third of Senate seats up for election and all House seats up for grabs. According to an AP/Norc poll, 52% of Americans believe Trump’s policies have had a negative impact on their health care spending so far. Other recent local elections also showed that the cost of living in general and the cost of health care in particular were the issues that favored the Democratic candidates.
Debate over Obamacare subsidies
Trump’s announcement comes at a time when Democrats and Republicans have already clashed over subsidies for Obamacare, the public health insurance system adopted under the presidency of Barack Obama and aimed mainly at low-income households. The subsidies ended on December 31, and millions of Americans saw their insurance costs skyrocket. According to federal data, about 1.5 million people chose not to renew their insurance coverage for 2026, and some remained uninsured.
The US does not have a public, universal health insurance system, but it spends far more money on its health care system than other developed countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and at the same time, on some indicators, it is not doing as well. According to the latest OECD data, the world’s strongest economy spends more than 17% of its GDP on health, compared to 9% (on average) for the rest of the countries. Life expectancy in the US is 78.4 years, which is 2.7 years less than the OECD average.
