Trump rallies for Argentina but not for Americans

Editor:

“They have no money. They have nothing,” Trump said this week. “They’re fighting so hard to survive.”

And for a second I thought he was describing Americans—either the million federal employees furloughed or working without pay, or the soybean farmers and cattle ranchers whose industries have been decimated by tariffs, or the millions whose health insurance will become so unaffordable next year they’ll lose coverage—but he wasn’t talking about Americans.

“They are dying,” Trump said of Argentina. “We’re going to help them survive in a free world.”

Nearly 6.6 million New Yorkers rely on marketplace insurance, with almost a third of them enrolled in the Essential Plan or a subsidized ACA plan. Republicans and Democrats knew in January that ACA subsidies would run out this year, but in March, when they passed a continuing resolution on the budget, they did nothing.

Then, the “Big Beautiful Bill” passage in July not only again ignored ACA subsidies, but enacted cuts that would strip millions more Americans of their health insurance. Democrats were right to realize that what shred of respect their voters still had for them would be lost if they didn’t stand up for underinsured Americans just trying to survive, so they said no, Mike Johnson: fix this problem, or we’re not voting for your budget.

And yes, the ACA is broken. Even at its current prices, I still spend well over 10% of my income on a premium for coverage and can’t use. But even though I won’t lose the subsidy because I don’t qualify for it, my insurance premium will rise next year by 14%. If the ACA subsidies are not revived, every one of the 6.6 million citizens living in NY will see record high increases in their premiums next year.

The only good thing Republicans have done this year was stop telling the American people the lie that this budget fight was about “giving illegal aliens healthcare,” but their new talking point makes no more sense. Paying for ACA subsidies is too expensive? Americans’ lives are too expensive?

If Trump took Argentina’s $20 billion (which offers zero benefit for Americans, for no reason other than to prop up the craven and dying philosophy of libertarianism) and added one year of new spending on his private militia (ICE – $18.7 billion), he’d have more than enough to pay for a year of ACA subsidies. At least that would get him through the midterms.

But Mike Johnson and the other weasels propping up the dying philosophy of “America First” don’t need popular support for the midterms. All they need to do to keep power is redraw states’ district lines, strip out the Civil Rights Act, and terrorize poor and working class Americans into silence with these military occupation “practice” runs.

To Mike Johnson, John Thune, and Claudia Tenney—what is your answer on our broken healthcare system? You whine that the ACA should have never been passed, because the only salience you ever have with your low-information base is playing the victim.

You control every branch of government. You have all the power you need to deliver solutions on Americans’ access to quality, affordable healthcare. You have no ideas, except that the poor should die because they didn’t work hard enough. When that begins to happen, you won’t even hear Trump admit, “They are dying.” He’ll say, just like he did when asked about Charlie Kirk’s death, “Have you seen my new ballroom?”

Sincerely,

Tyler Barton

Hamlin