Trump Unveils ‘Great Healthcare Plan’ With Few Specifics

Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

Happy Thursday! President Trump apparently got his long-coveted Nobel Peace Prize today. Well, it wasn't actually his prize. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she presented Trump with the medal she won when she met with him at the White House today to discuss her country's future. Trump today also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and send troops into Minnesota to quash protests that have escalated in intensity after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good last week.

Here's what else is happening.

Trump Outlines a Long-Awaited Healthcare Plan, With Few Specifics

President Trump on Thursday released the outline of a new healthcare plan that largely repackages several familiar proposals aimed at lowering insurance premiums and prescription drug prices under a new title: "The Great Healthcare Plan." You can be certain you'll be hearing that name repeatedly as part of Trump's election-year affordability pitch.

"If this plan is put in place, every single American who has health care in the United States will see lower costs as a result," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a daily news briefing.

Trump's framework stops well short of a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system and is light on details - you could call it "concepts of a plan." It would do little to address rising costs in employer-based plans or cut out-of-pocket costs for millions of Americans. "The proposal," STAT News notes, "would not reshape the structure of Medicare, Medicaid, or the health insurance plans people get through their jobs. Hospitals and doctors would not cede pricing power."

It could, however, undermine the Affordable Care Act. Trump's outline "includes some ideas with bipartisan support, like more price transparency and regulating pharmacy benefit managers," Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a healthcare research non-profit, posted on X. "But, they're wrapped in partisan proposals that would undermine the ACA."

Trump's plan, as outlined by the White House, is centered on four pillars aimed mostly at the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.

  • Lowering prescription drug prices: Trump's plan calls on Congress to codify his deals requiring drugmakers to offer Americans "most-favored nation" pricing that matches lower prices in similar countries. Some Republicans have opposed that proposal, arguing that it goes against the free-market principles of the GOP.

    Trump also proposes to make more pharmaceuticals available over the counter if it's safe to do so.

  • Lowering insurance premiums: Trump continues to press lawmakers to shift billions of dollars in funding that have been used for ACA subsidies into direct payments for eligible Americans to use in shopping for their insurance plans. "President Trump is suggesting here that people could use government subsidies to buy insurance that doesn't comply with ACA rules, including coverage of pre-existing conditions," Levitt wrote. "That could lower costs for healthy people, but send the ACA marketplace into a death spiral."

    Trump's proposal also calls for the reintroduction of a "cost-sharing reduction" program under the ACA that was ended in 2017, during his first term. The White House points to a Congressional Budget Office estimate that the plan would save $36 billion while lowering premiums on so-called silver-level Obamacare plans - but experts note that premiums for bronze and gold plans would likely rise.

    Trump also called for ending payments from pharmacy benefit managers to the middlemen who help employers choose benefit plans, which the president called "kickbacks." That proposal falls short of bipartisan calls for a more severe crackdown on pharmacy benefit managers.

  • Holding big insurers accountable: Trump wants insurance giants to post rate and coverage comparisons in plain English and provide details about the profits they make from premiums and how often they deny care and reject claims.
  • Increasing transparency: Trump's plan emphasizes increased price transparency requirements for healthcare providers and insurers so that patients can more easily "shop for a better deal or better care." Such efforts at increased transparency have both potential and limitations, according to one recent analysis by the Brookings Institution, a D.C. think tank, which noted that availability of pricing data does not guarantee that patients can access the information or use it effectively. "Without accompanying tools, incentives, and systems that enable patients, especially insured ones, to act on pricing data, the reach of transparency will remain narrow," the Brookings report concluded.

In announcing his repackaged plan, Trump called on Congress to quickly pass his framework - a highly unlikely proposition. "We have to do it right now so that we can get immediate relief to the American people," he said.

It's not clear who, if anyone, might be looking to turn Trump's framework into legislation. It's not clear if Republicans, long divided on healthcare issues, can coalesce around Trump's outline. And Democrats were quick to pan the president's plan, making it even less likely that it can become law.

"Time and again, Donald Trump has made empty promises to the American people about lowering their health care costs, and today's announcement is no different," said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. "The Republican health care agenda is all about making your healthcare cost more and letting giant corporations decide if and when you get healthcare."

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators continues to work on a compromise deal to extend the expired Affordable Care Act subsidies, though efforts to announce an agreement this week were derailed by continuing differences.

The bottom line: Trump's plan might not get far in Congress - and it might not have a major effect if it does - but the announcement itself has already delivered Trump and the White House a valuable political win: a slew of favorable news headlines that say something along the lines of "Trump Unveils Health Care Affordability Plan" and "Trump Lays Out New Framework to Address Health Costs."

Senate Passes 3 More Spending Bills for 2026

The Senate passed a minibus package of three spending bills Thursday, ahead of a rapidly approaching January 30 deadline. The 82-15 vote on the package funding the Commerce, Justice, Energy and Interior departments through the end of the fiscal year means that the Senate has now passed six of the 12 annual spending bills for fiscal year 2026, which started in October.

The next six bills could prove more difficult to pass. The pending bills include funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has become a flashpoint as lawmakers wrangle over the violent immigration crackdown occurring in Minneapolis and other cities around the country.

Another challenge: Senators are leaving town today and taking next week off for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, leaving just a few days to deal with a half dozen major funding bills before the end of the month. The tight schedule could mean that lawmakers resort to passing a continuing resolution to avoid a partial government shutdown on February 1, though the odds of a more disruptive shutdown appear to be very low.

Congress Considers Another $15 Billion for Farmers Hurt by Trump Tariffs

The federal government is providing billions of dollars in aid to American farmers who are suffering during the trade war sparked by President Trump's imposition of historically high tariffs on countries around the world, and some Republican lawmakers are considering providing billions more through the appropriations bills currently working their way through Congress.

Last month, the White House unveiled a $12 billion aid package for farmers, provided under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, the same Depression-era law Trump used to provide $28 billion in aid to farmers during his first administration. Politico's Grace Yarrow reports that a group of Republicans are now working on a plan to provide as much as $15 billion in additional aid. The lawmakers involved include Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, who heads the Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture; Rep. G.T. Thompson of Pennsylvania, House Agriculture Committee chair; and Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, who leads the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

The value of the total aid package is still under discussion, with Thompson indicating that he expects it to be more than $10 billion. An unnamed insider provided the $15 billion estimate.

"We're looking at exactly what the need is and how it would be dispersed," Thompson told Politico.

Thompson added that the aid package would likely include both "row crop" and "specialty crop" farmers, and possibly producers who work with lumber.

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