The government has reopened, and now the battle over Obamacare subsidies begins. President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Monday to weigh in on what he wants to see in terms of these subsidies used to prop up the healthcare industry.
THE ONLY HEALTHCARE I WILL SUPPORT OR APPROVE IS SENDING THE MONEY DIRECTLY BACK TO THE PEOPLE, WITH NOTHING GOING TO THE BIG, FAT, RICH INSURANCE COMPANIES, WHO HAVE MADE $TRILLIONS, AND RIPPED OFF AMERICA LONG ENOUGH. THE PEOPLE WILL BE ALLOWED TO NEGOTIATE AND BUY THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, INSURANCE. POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Congress, do not waste your time and energy on anything else. This is the only way to have great Healthcare in America!!! GET IT DONE, NOW. President DJT
That's saying and asking a lot of a system invested in maintaining its power and prominence, not in keeping people well. The Republicans in Congress appear to be backing this and are floating ways on how to execute.
Here’s the choice. The current system siphons off your health care dollars for insurance company administration costs and profit. My solution sends 100% of that money directly to you, to pay for your family's care. pic.twitter.com/SVMrNiWLsK
— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) November 9, 2025
But a greater problem exists: bringing true reform to healthcare involves the reduction of government funding and control over healthcare, something that not everyone, including the insurance providers, is on board with. Health advocate and former special employee to HHS Calley Means spoke about this during last week's MAHA Summit in D.C.
WATCH:
My jaw dropped when I saw this number: more than 50 PERCENT of government spending goes to healthcare.
— Calley Means (@calleymeans) November 13, 2025
Yet we have lowest life expectancy in developed world.
Democrats look at this and want more spending.
Republicans want reform. pic.twitter.com/Oj6KQpemKD
Healthcare activist Dutch Rojas revealed that in 2024 alone, the healthcare industry spent $744 million to lobby Congress to vote in favor of the status quo.
In 2024, the healthcare industry spent $744 million lobbying Congress, led by the American Hospital Association. Their goal?
— Dutch Rojas (@DutchRojas) November 13, 2025
Block site-neutral payment reform, undermine price transparency, and keep the status quo intact.
Health Systems claim transparency exists, but the… pic.twitter.com/IHc6WwVATT
In 2024, the healthcare industry spent $744 million lobbying Congress, led by the American Hospital Association. Their goal?
Block site-neutral payment reform, undermine price transparency, and keep the status quo intact.
Health Systems claim transparency exists, but the files are indecipherable.
When decoded, the same procedure varies by 500%, in the same city. Not because of quality. But because of market power....
While the American people may or may not remember their Congressperson who voted to unchain them from an onerous insurance industry, the industry will definitely remember the Congressperson who took their money and created (or blocked) laws crafted in their interest. According to Open Secrets, Blue Cross/Blue Shield contributed over $10 million to Democrat and Republican candidates and PACS through its various committees. Same with United Healthcare and its many arms. They contributed over $4 million to ensure their interests were represented, no matter who won the White House or who gained majorities in Congress. Those are campaign contributions, but the lobbying contributions are even more insane. Blue Cross poured out $27,146,300 in 2024 alone, and United Healthcare poured in $7,520,000 that same year. They have their fingers in every aspect of our systems, and they will not release their grasp that easily.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is working to dismantle this corporate medical system that opposes people taking control of their health outcomes, but in this particular government bureaucracy, the red tape is legion. While Kennedy and his soldiers try to work it out, millions of people are clamoring for treatments that could help them or their loved ones survive a cancer battle or just have better life outcomes.
Dilbert creator/cartoonist and social commentator Scott Adams has garnered attention because of his very public battle with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread beyond the prostate with no response to traditional treatments. Adams sought to gain access to a new drug called Pluvicto, which is FDA-approved, but Adams' insurance provider, Kaiser Permanente, was mired in red tape that prevented him from getting timely treatment. Adams has a huge platform, so he petitioned President Trump to get the FDA involved, and he was successful in this endeavor. Adams is now receiving the treatment. While there are no guarantees this will cure his cancer, it is helping him have a better quality of life as he struggles through.
Scott Adams and a Cancer Teaching Moment. Treating the immune system and protecting the NK and T cells during radiation. The FDA approved mechanism of action of Anktiva. The Bioshield when these precious cancer killing cells are exposed to any radiation. https://t.co/FHAyo4mCwd
— Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong (@DrPatSoonShiong) November 17, 2025
The good news is that newer treatments are improving outcomes for patients and carry fewer harmful side effects. Take Novartis’s Pluvicto, which delivers radiation directly to cancer cells. In a clinical trial, it more than doubled progression-free survival for patients with metastatic prostate cancer that stops responding to hormone therapies.
Mr. Adams posted on social media this weekend that he has had a hard time scheduling an appointment with his provider, Kaiser Permanente, to receive a Pluvicto infusion. President Trump saw the post and directed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to help Mr. Adams. There’s no small irony here in that RFK Jr. is a leading anti-pharma antagonist.
Liberals are spinning the cartoonist’s plight as a parable of America’s horrific private medical system. But Mr. Adams had been approved by Kaiser Permanente to receive the drug. His access problem appears to have been bureaucratic.
Who creates and maintains these bureaucracies? The insurance companies that pour money into Congress to create regulations and appropriate in their favor, then those funds get poured into the HHS systems that are sorely in need of reform.
California conservative activist Lori Mills has been fighting a similar battle. Her husband was recently diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer with only a 5 percent five-year survival rate. Mills has a smaller platform than Adams, but still used it to advocate for her husband to receive the alternative treatment of Anktiva to help him in his battle. While her husband was approved and is currently undergoing treatment, they now have the holdup of an FDA ethics board. Mills wrote on X:
Update- Well my husbands case got FDA approval but now it’s at an ethics board. The red tape needs to be cut. I sat in radiology today. So many sick people. One man was suffering as the radiation has caused him to be raw. I prayed for him. I don’t understand why my husband with a terminal cancer needs his case reviewed by an ethics board to see if ANKTIVA will hurt him. It’s ludicrous. I pray he can start at the end of the week or sooner. I pray the FDA and NIH approve this therapy nationwide.
These are catastrophic illnesses, and it is a blessing that Mills' and Adams' public reach allowed them to turn the bureaucratic tide so that real help could be administered. But what about the parent of a chronically ill child? Or the person with Type 2 diabetes who is peddled more medicine and poor medical advice instead of being given resources that will assist lifestyle choices that could make a difference? For every chronic and catastrophic case, there are a million "regular cases" that slip through the radar because insurance blocks or slow rolls treatments, or the cost is prohibitive for the average family.
While the president's aims are well-intentioned, unless Congress and the American people strongly advocate and fight for this, it's easy to remain skeptical that much progress will be made. If Congress does follow through to remove subsidies from the insurance providers to give money back to the American people, then that will be a monumental leap forward. Americans have the power to speak to this: rather than demanding the failing system of Obamacare continue to be propped up, they can choose to lobby Congress themselves for a new system that gives them back more of their money and, ultimately, power over their healthcare choices.
Editor's Note: President Trump is fighting to Make America Healthy Again and ensure the American people get the healthcare they deserve without the exorbitant costs.
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