Happy MAHAversary: We’re Now All So Healthy (Again) That We Don’t Even Need Hospitals Anymore

One year ago this past Saturday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his presidential campaign, joined forces with Donald Trump, and announced the his plan to “Make America Healthy Again.” You know, like we were before we had vaccines or pasteurization, when people frequently got very sick from what are now easily preventable illnesses.

So far, it’s resulted in the biggest measles outbreak in modern history, the decimation of Medicaid, the defunding of cancer research, the defunding of mRNA vaccine research, understaffing VA hospitals, and so many, many more things that are going to end quite badly for a lot of people.

You may be wondering what the map at the top of this page is about. If you haven’t guessed, it’s a map of where hospitals are closing, have closed, or are in serious danger of closing upon the enactment of Donald Trump’s Big Stupid Bill. Last week, the nonprofit healthcare advocacy org Protect Our Care’s Hospital Crisis Watch initiative — where you can see an interactive version of the map — published a report on the effects the Medicaid gutting will have on Americans across the country (but mainly in the rural areas that went to Trump).

It’s not good news!

Via Protect Our Care:

• Over 330 hospitals will likely be forced to close or scale back their services after GOP policies gut over $400 billion in critical funding — forcing more Americans to travel further for maternity care and emergency rooms, and face longer wait times.

• Hospitals count on Medicaid to keep their doors open. Medicaid accounts for one fifth of spending on hospitals, one fifth of hospital discharges, and at least one in five inpatient days in nearly every state.

• Hospitals are the sixth largest employer in the country. Republicans will undermine an industry that employs nearly 7 million community servants, from doctors to nurses to social workers, to hand out tax breaks to the ultrawealthy. An estimated 477,000 health workers will lose their jobs as a result of GOP cuts to Medicaid.

And let’s not forget the fact that many hospitals in these areas are also losing maternity care thanks to their terrible abortion laws, and that Planned Parenthood clinics, where many Medicaid patients get gynecological care and breast exams, are closing all over as well.

Or that 16 million people are about to lose their healthcare, thanks to these requirements. Though they’re not the only ones who are going to be fucked. According to another recent report on the site, 44 million Americans are about to see their insurance premiums raised.

The GOP budget bill made the largest health care cuts in history, slashing over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Because of these GOP policies, insurance companies have already indicated they plan to raise premiums for 24 million Americans by an average of 15 percent. At the same time, Republicans are ripping away tax credits from 20 million, forcing them to pay an average of 75 percent more for their coverage. These price hikes will cause countless hard-working families to lose life-saving coverage while millions more will suffer under the already-rising cost of living.

Despite the fact that it hasn’t gone into effect yet, some conservatives are even starting to notice that this might not be good for them either. Last week, “proud conservative” Rachel Roth Aldhizer published an article in The New York Times, where it will never be read by people who share her views, about how her disabled son needs Medicaid to live. She could have brought this story to Fox News or to The Daily Wire, or to The Blaze, or to any of the other 80 billion right-wing media outlets, where she might have reached even one person who might change their mind because of her story, but no. She published in The New York Times, a publication these people have decided is fully fictional. So helpful!

It’s also worth noting that there is currently no official definition for “able bodied,” which means that a lot of people with serious medical issues that prevent them from being able to work will lose their coverage as well. Who will be deciding what conditions will exempt people from the work requirements? Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is definitely qualified to do that.

Via Mother Jones:

A person with debilitating chronic pain, or a serious autoimmune illness, may appear “able-bodied” by the standards RFK Jr. appears poised to implement—even as they face hurdles in qualifying for Social Security disability due to not being considered disabled enough. HHS declined to answer a series of questions for this article, instead offering a general statement that the agency “remains committed to protecting and strengthening Medicaid for those who rely on it…while eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.”

“It’s completely counterintuitive to not allow people to have health care until they’re at a point where they can ‘prove it,’” Justice in Aging attorney Gelila Selassie told me. “At that point, they’re definitely not going to be able to work, and then, more importantly, they don’t have access to health care.”

Things are also going pretty badly for federal health workers and home health workers.

On Friday, Health and Human Services announced that it will no longer recognize unions, ending collective bargaining rights for thousands of their employees. You know, because of how much Trump and his pals love unions and the working class?

“This action ensures that HHS resources and personnel are fully focused on safeguarding the health and security of the American people,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said in a statement, because getting paid fairly for your work is a distraction.

Also, as we explained last month, it is very possible that home healthcare workers will no longer be subject to minimum wage laws.

Trump Labor Dept To Help More Workers Earn Less Than Minimum Wage, Also Maybe Die?

Should you be concerned about that, or if you just think that the people who change our nation’s bedpans deserve at least $7.25 an hour, or you suspect that the only people who would accept that pay are serial killers looking for easy marks, you have until the public comment period ends September 2 to let the National Labor Relations Board know.

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As it turns out, making America healthy “again” looks a lot like making actual healthcare less available to people, more expensive, killing healthcare jobs, possibly pulling COVID vaccines off the market entirely, and letting people die from the measles. That doesn’t seem good.

But just to be fair, some restaurants have decided to use beef tallow instead of seed oils, and that makes people feel healthy, even though there’s not actually anything wrong with them, so that’s something. Right?