Trump’s Health Care Policies Put Patients First | Opinion

Throughout the 2024 presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris has attacked former president Donald Trump with dire, misleading warnings about how his policies would devastate America’s health care system. However, Trump has a proven track record that indicates otherwise: His administration implemented policies that delivered better care at lower costs for Americans.
When Trump entered office in January 2017, his administration faced a health care system that was becoming increasingly unaffordable for everyday Americans. Between 2010 and 2017, the annual cost of premiums for families receiving coverage from their employer increased by 36 percent—almost three times the rate of inflation during the same time period.
To tackle this affordability crisis, the Trump administration took major steps to provide small businesses and workers more tools to lower the cost of coverage. It removed regulatory roadblocks that prevented employers from banding together to jointly buy health insurance for employees through association health plans. These group plans give small businesses, freelancers, and the self-employed the ability to negotiate lower prices for themselves and their families with buying power similar to that of large corporations. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that association health plans charge premiums 30 percent lower than those of the plans small employers typically offer. It also forecast that 3.7 million individuals would receive coverage through these group plans by 2028. However, the Biden-Harris administration restored the roadblocks for employers, preventing small businesses from utilizing these plans and providing health care at lower prices to their employees.
The Trump administration also announced that Medicare Advantage plans were allowed to offer tailored benefits to seniors with chronic diseases who have different medical needs than typical seniors. These changes allowed Medicare Advantage plans to improve care at lower costs for certain critical services, such as when diabetic patients visit endocrinologists or need more frequent foot exams.
These patient-first reforms extended into better, more affordable prescription drug coverage for seniors. The Trump administration made common-sense changes to Medicare Part D, allowing seniors to more quickly access generic versions of brand-name drugs. Prior to this change, insurers had to give enrollees two months of public notice before they covered these more affordable drugs.
These reforms played a role in ensuring greater choices and lower premiums for seniors under the Trump administration. Between 2017 and 2021, the number of Medicare Advantage options increased 78 percent and the average monthly premium for Medicare Advantage decreased 34 percent. In Part D, the number of plans available to seniors increased 34 percent and the average monthly premium decreased by 19 percent.
Everyone, especially older and sicker patients, benefit from the enhanced choice and flexibility that the Trump administration’s policies delivered. The Biden-Harris administration’s policies, on the other hand, have ballooned the cost of care and ripped choice and competition away from patients.
In 2021, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the American Rescue Plan Act. This bill added billions of dollars to Obamacare’s insurance subsidy program—a top contributor to America’s inflation crisis, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Since that law was enacted, medical inflation has increased by 15 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Then, in 2022, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act. This law redesigned Medicare Part D in ways that significantly increased costs. Between 2021 and 2025, the annual taxpayer and patient cost of Part D will have ballooned 37.7 percent, from $109.7 billion to $151.1 billion. In response to these changes, the number of Part D plan offerings have decreased 47 percent over this period, affecting roughly 2 million seniors for 2025 alone.
If the Inflation Reduction Act goes into effect as passed and signed by President Biden, it would hit seniors with a gigantic premium increase in 2025. To counter this impending disaster, the administration will spend an additional $5 billion to blunt Part D’s premium increases. This bailout expires after 2027, and Harris has no plan to protect seniors when it does.
The Trump administration’s policies delivered the essential care that Americans need at a lower cost. By contrast, the Biden-Harris administration’s policies have fueled health care inflation and grossly mismanaged the vital health care benefits that patients rely on, resulting in higher costs and fewer choices for families.
When Americans think about the future and their health care, it is clear health care was better and more affordable under the Trump administration.
Bobby Jindal served as governor of Louisiana (2008-16) and as a U.S. assistant secretary of Health and Human Services from (2001-03). Charlie Katebi is deputy director of the Center for a Healthy America at the America First Policy Institute.
The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.