The Fascist Regime is Directly Harming American Health

And might actually kill you

The new fascist regime is screwing around with what is left of the US healthcare provision system.

One Executive Order (EO) rescinded the $2/month cap on generic drugs for Medicare recipients. This was enacted for no other reason than to f**k over poor people. Honest. Walmart sells the same generic drugs for $4/month or $10/90 day supply. And so, the only people directly harmed are those who have trouble paying the extra $2/month¹.

It’s also idiotic for a regime that claims to want to cut costs because this will cost Medicare MORE money. Medicare pays the drug companies Average Sales Price (ASP) plus 6%. If the ASP price goes up, the cost to Medicare goes up.

Then, the fascists² reversed the EO that makes cell and gene therapy treatments more accessible to Medicaid recipients. The program was an opt-in for states, and it allowed the state Medicaid programs to make drugs, especially for cancer and sickle cell anemia, available to Medicaid patients. The cruelty is heart-breaking.

Next, the Orange Menace rescinded President Biden’s EO that led to longer enrollment periods for Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans in most states and extra funding for the third parties that help people enroll in ACA insurance.

While the program was in effect, it grew the number of people enrolled in the ACA. And having more people enrolled DECREASES the net cost of payouts³, saving the government money, not to mention how preventive and early care decreases more expensive care down the road.

The more people who participate in an insurance program, the better off everyone is. People requiring medical attention range from people who are young and healthy and all they need for the year is a check-up, then people who are fundamentally healthy, but have an accident requiring, say, getting a broken bone set, through people with chronic conditions who require a lot of monitoring, medications, and potentially multiple specialist visits, all the way through people who are very ill and require incredibly expensive medical care⁴.

The more people in the pool, the more the risk is spread around, and the more premiums are able to cover the costs, plus the overhead (which is 2% for Medicare and Medicaid, and legally limited to 15% for private insurers).

For far too many people, healthcare of any sort is unavailable. “Healthcare deserts” impact 80% of US counties, and about a third of the population. Full details here: if you plan to read the link, make sure you have tissues, because it will make you cry.

There are a number of NGOs, like RAM and NAFCC, that set up pop-up clinics for people who cannot access healthcare. These are funded by donations, and staffed by volunteers. RAM has been doing this for close to 40 years and NAFCC for almost 25 years, since the problem is not new.

Back when Keith Olbermann was raising money for NAFCC through his MSNBC show Countdown, one of the things that struck me in his discussion was how many people wanted their teeth pulled. They had no access to dentists, they had multiple cavities, plus abscesses, and not having teeth solved the problem.

The need will grow when the fascist regime screws with the ACA, Medicare and Medicaid. I shudder to think about a return to a healthcare system that eschews preventative care, doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions, and dismantles the other essential benefits.

People will suffer.

People will die.

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The fascist regime has ordered Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to pause all external communications.

I am not making this up.

A pause of a week or two may not be crucial, but depending on what the regime decides to keep from the public going forward may directly impact your life, or even kill you. Just a few “highlights”, there are many more:

• NIH undertakes, and funds, research on diseases and new medications, in addition to other things they do. If they are not allowed to publish research, clinicians will not know about new treatments that might be more effective than existing options.

• The National Library of Medicine is a part of NIH. Amoungst other things, they run the website clinicaltrials.gov, where people can look for trials for conditions they have. It enables clinicians to find potential treatments for their patients when other options have been exhausted. It could be gone.

• CDC’s Health Alert Network publishes information on the spread of Covid, Influenza, RSV, Norovirus, Dengue Fever, and all the other diseases that are prevalent in the country, and their data informs where cases are rising and falling, so people can take appropriate action, and hospitals can plan for upcoming surges.

• CDC also publishes the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which is critical for epidemiologists, and has been published without break since 1930⁵.

• And let’s not forget salmonella, E. coli, listeria, and other food-borne bacteria. The FDA publishes information (link until they take it down) on the status of investigations. You know, like listeria in Boars Head, E. coli in organic carrots, onions on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders - just a few from last year. Shame if we all don’t know about them anymore.

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So, what do we do?

Regarding Medicare drug costs, and anything else impacting upcoming horrors to the ACA, Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Benefits, start calling/writing your elected officials so they know this matters to you. Congress can make laws, and potentially override a veto, if enough people make sure they know what matters.

As for medical information, we don’t know for sure yet which reports will be held back and which will be allowed to be published. There will be both private sources, and local government sources that can provide some information. It likely won’t be as comprehensive, but it will be a place to start.

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It’s been a difficult week, but tomorrow in the Friday Potpourri, I will be sharing uplifting information. Oh, and some snark, of course.

1. Yes, many people on Medicare take multiple drugs, so the costs can add up, but if one were taking 5 drugs, the cost would go from $10 to $20 which is a BIG problem for poor people, and absorbable by people who are more economically set. And yes, this does not cover all generics, but if you compare the Medicare formulary with the Walmart formulary, there is a large amount of overlap. Therefore, using Walmart for generic drugs

2. If you think that the Orange Menace wrote any of these EOs himself, you’re wrong. First, he can’t write. Second, he has minions who “pre-wrote” a lot of them while pulling together Project 2025.

3. “Net cost of payouts” in this case relates to the percentage of premium dollars that are spent on medical services.

4. For most of my life, I was the “annual physical” type, and my premiums basically paid for other people’s treatment. From the day I took ill in October 2020, through the end of my cancer treatment in 2023, my medical bills totaled almost $800,000 AS BILLED. If I had been uninsured, I would have been on the hook for that amount, or I would have died because I couldn’t afford care, many people do. But I have corporate insurance, which capped the amount I had to pay annually, which precluded personal bankruptcy. In addition, the insurance company capped the amount paid per service, procedure and medication, and the providers had to accept that amount, thus decreasing the actual cost to the insurance company.

5. It was originally established as Weekly Health Index in 1930, changing its title to Weekly Mortality Index in 1941 and Morbidity and Mortality in 1952.