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Politics
Advocates Say Benefit Cuts by Medicare Advantage Giants Highlight 'Dysfunction' of For-Profit System
"It is well past time that the United States joins the rest of the industrialized world and treats healthcare as a right, not a privilege, by improving traditional Medicare and expanding it to everyone."
Sep 11, 2026
News that top Medicare Advantage insurers are moving to cut benefits and drop some plans entirely in a bid to boost their profitability came as no surprise to critics of the for-profit US health insurance system, which enriches giant companies and their executives while leaving tens of millions of people in the lurch.
In recent public remarks, executives at Humana and UnitedHealthcare—two of the largest Medicare Advantage insurers in the US—have indicated that the companies plan to exit certain geographic markets and implement other changes deemed necessary to drive "margin expansion," corporate-speak for profits. The changes by the two companies are expected to impact more than a million seniors who receive coverage through the insurers' Medicare Advantage plans, which are privately run but funded by taxpayer dollars.
Wendell Potter, president of the Center for Health and Democracy and a former Cigna executive, told Common Dreams that companies like Humana and UnitedHealthcare "have long made clear they answer to their shareholders, not those they insure."
"These companies are not really in the healthcare business, they are in the business of making money for their shareholders and their executives," said Potter, who now advocates for a Medicare for All system. "They will cut any corner, deny any care, and cut any patient if it helps increase their bottom line."
UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare's parent company, reported $5.5 billion in profit during the second quarter of 2026, up from $3.4 billion the same time last year. Humana reported $694 million in second-quarter profits.
Recent research led by Mark Meiselbach, a healthcare economist at Johns Hopkins University estimates that "approximately one in 10 beneficiaries in HMO or PPO Medicare Advantage plans will be forced to disenroll from their current plan due to their plan exiting the market" this year. That amounts to around 3 million seniors who will be forced to find a different plan or switch to traditional Medicare during the open enrollment period, which begins next month.
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works and author of The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action, told Common Dreams that "misleadingly-named Medicare 'Advantage,' together with all private health insurance, is why our nation’s healthcare system is so dysfunctional."
"It mixes healthcare with the motive to make a profit, resulting in the most expensive system in the industrialized world with the worst health outcomes," said Altman. "The recent announcements by UnitedHealthcare and Humana that they plan to exit markets and cut benefits is just one symptom of the dysfunction."
"It is well past time that the United States joins the rest of the industrialized world and treats healthcare as a right, not a privilege, by improving traditional Medicare and expanding it to everyone," said Altman.
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis published in July found that federal spending per Medicare Advantage enrollee "is projected to be 7% higher, on average," than spending on traditional Medicare over the next 10 years.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget noted that the CBO's analysis "suggests the federal government will spend about $1 trillion on MA overpayments over the next decade." Medicare Advantage plans are notorious for making patients appear sicker than they actually are, reaping larger federal payments.
President Donald Trump pledged during remarks earlier this week to the Republican midterm convention that his administration would "end all payments to big health insurance companies."
But Potter noted that Trump's administration is set to shell out over $13 billion in payments to Medicare Advantage plans this year along.
"If Trump were serious about lowering healthcare costs," Potter told Common Dreams, "he'd break up the monopolies and the for-profit healthcare system."
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Ted Cruz Silent After GOP Rallygoer Shouts That Dems 'Should Be Shot' During Speech
During the same speech, Cruz tied Democrats' rhetoric to the 9/11 attacks, the murder of Charlie Kirk, and assassination attempts against Trump.
Sep 11, 2026
While speaking at a midterm convention for Republicans on Thursday night, Sen. Ted Cruz blamed left-wing rhetoric for fomenting violence. But the Texas senator did not react when an attendee in the crowd shouted loudly that three different Democratic politicians "should be shot."
During the speech in Dallas, which took place on the one-year anniversary of the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, and a day before the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Cruz said that "the hate that killed Charlie Kirk, that knocked down the Twin Towers, that led to two assassination attempts on President [Donald] Trump... just keeps getting worse and worse," and claimed that it had overtaken the Democratic Party.
Cruz said the party was being swept over by "a new and dangerous red-green alliance: communists and Islamists," and singled out specific figures.
Joining persistent attacks from fellow Republicans against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Muslim faith, Cruz lamented, "On 9/11, could anyone have imagined that Comrade Mamdani would be the mayor of New York?"
Cruz then referenced a comment Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, made during a 2021 meeting of the organization's youth wing in which he said workers "seizing the means of production" was an "end goal." Though Mamdani has not used similar rhetoric since beginning his campaign for mayor, Cruz seized upon the old comments nonetheless.
"When Mamdani says he wants to ‘seize the means of production,’ he means it," Cruz said.
It was then that a shout rang out from the crowd: "He should be shot!"
Cruz did not react, moving on to discuss Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic US Senate nominee for Michigan, who is a former public health official for Detroit.
"When Abdul El-Sayed says he has an obligation to Sharia law, he means it," Cruz continued, twisting a comment El-Sayed made to The New York Times in 2009, when he was a 24-year-old medical student, referring to his personal decision to use a Sharia-compliant mortgage because Islam prohibits interest.
On the 2026 campaign trail, El-Sayed has clarified he has no desire "to push Sharia law on anyone else… because we live in an America where you should have the freedom of your religion.”
Again, the audience member shouted, "He should be shot!"
Cruz then turned to Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D-50), the Democratic nominee for US Senate, whom he said also "means it," when he "says he wants to dismantle capitalism."
He was referring to comments that Talarico made at a Sierra Club candidate forum in 2020 when he spoke of "climate change, white supremacy, and capitalism" as "oppressive systems" that "work together." Talarico has since said the comments "missed the mark."
Once again, the rallygoer shouted, "He should be shot!" Cruz did not react.
A spokesperson for Cruz declined to say whether the senator heard the violent shouts when asked about it by The Washington Post. The Post noted that while it was unclear if Cruz heard the remarks, several other speakers during the convention responded when hecklers interrupted them, and Trump reacted to shouts from the crowd repeatedly.
Cruz's social media account has posted a clip of the speech in which the shouts of "he should be shot" are audible, which remains online.
El-Sayed told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Thursday night that the call for violence frightened him.
“Look, I’m a dad with two daughters, and I hope those daughters get to grow up and live with their dad,” the 41-year-old candidate said. “This is what has become the norm in our politics. I mean, literally calls to violence and the inability for anybody to actually call it out.”
“Democracy is supposed to be the process by which we solve our problems peacefully,” he continued. “We can learn to disagree agreeably, and when you hear that kind of call to violence, it should be shuddering to all of us. We have a responsibility to lower the temperature, to realize that this is not a bloodsport, where you’re just trying to bash the other guy.”
Mamdani and Talarico have not publicly responded to the calls for violence at the time of publication. However, other Democrats have called them out and criticized Cruz's silence.
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) wrote in a social media post that Cruz "had the opportunity to end the calls for violence, instead he riled people up."
She added that Cruz "owes Mamdani, El-Sayed, Talarico, and the communities they are fighting to represent an apology."
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) wrote that "every single Republican should denounce this dangerous rhetoric immediately—starting with Ted Cruz."
At the time of publication, Cruz had not made a public statement on the incident. Multiple outlets reported that his office has not responded to requests for comment.
Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Mich.) described Cruz's lack of a response to the violent shouts as "a shameful profile in cowardice."
"Political violence is a big problem," she added. "Rather than egging on, real leaders call it out. It needs to stop, regardless of party.”
Cruz's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Common Dreams on Friday about whether he condemned the call for violence and whether he believed that he bore similar responsibility for individuals' reactions to his political rhetoric that he ascribes to Democratic politicians.
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Mamdani Says NYC Can Honor 9/11 Victims by Building a City Where 'We Run Toward One Another'
"Let us remember the extraordinary compassion, resilience, and bravery that carried our city through its darkest day."
Sep 11, 2026
With Lower Manhattan and the site of the September 11 attacks in the background, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday called on people to honor the memory of the nearly 3,000 victims—as well as those who have died of illnesses stemming from toxic air at the site of the attacks—by caring "for one another" as thousands of people "cared for strangers" as the tragedy was unfolding exactly 25 years ago.
Mamdani honored the 2,753 New Yorkers—"parents and children, husbands and wives, friends and colleagues, 2,753 universes gone in an instant"—and said the city and country remember September 11 as "the darkest day" when hijackers flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and passengers aboard a fourth plane fought to stop another target from being struck.
The mayor urged viewers to remember the actions of thousands of New Yorkers in the immediate aftermath of the attack—those who donated blood and "opened their homes to those who could not get home."
"We remember the workers who carried their colleagues down hundreds of stairs, then turned around and went back up to find someone else who needed help," said Mamdani.
On social media, as the country marked the 25th anniversary of the attacks, many users spoke about specific acts of bravery, including those of Rick Rescorla, the head of security at Morgan Stanley, who was killed at the World Trade Center after he led roughly 2,700 of his colleagues to safety.
In a separate social media post on Instagram, Mamdani highlighted several lesser-known New Yorkers who "sprang into action to help however they could," including teachers, firefighters, sanitation workers, and healthcare providers.
His office interviewed Roseann Caruana of the city's Department of Transportation, who described a triage center that was set up for victims, and Rashel Dorleans—now a New York City public school teacher, and a high school student at the time of the attacks.
"I think it's a credit to the teachers that were there," said Dorleans. "They did not seem panicked. I'm sure they were panicked on the inside, but they were kind and calm with us."
Mamdani said that "we have a sacred obligation to those who were stolen from us to care for one another as they cared for strangers, to live lives worthy of the sacrifices they made, and to build a city worthy of their courage, a city where we run toward one another. That is how we remember."
Ahead of the anniversary this week, the mayor released long-hidden files regarding how New York residents were misled about the toxicity of the air at the World Trade Center attack site. He said the number of people who have died thus far from related cancers and other health issues has likely surpassed the number of victims on September 11.
Mamdani was also the target of attacks this week from Republicans including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and City Council members Vickie Paladino and Joann Ariola, who explicitly cited Mamdani's Muslim faith as they said he did "not belong" at the September 11 memorial ceremony held on Friday.
“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” Mamdani said when asked about the racist remarks. “What I want this week to be a focus on is the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11, and a focus also on the first responders who did everything they could.”
The mayor was seen shaking Giuliani's hand and speaking to him at the ceremony.
"Let us remember the extraordinary compassion, resilience, and bravery that carried our city through its darkest day," said Mamdani. "Today, New York remembers."
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Trump's $500 Healthcare Rebate Plan Called 'An Absolute Joke' as Premiums Skyrocket
"At a time when people are scraping by to keep up with the high cost of groceries, rent, and healthcare, this $500 gimmick won’t even begin to dig them out of the hole that Trump and Republicans created."
Sep 11, 2026
President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration would issue $500 rebate checks to some Americans who were purportedly "overcharged" under the Affordable Care Act, a move that would provide little to no relief to the millions of people impacted by surging health insurance premiums.
The White House said in a fact sheet that around a million Americans in 30 states would receive rebate checks, beginning next month—just weeks before the November midterms. Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, ripped the rebate plan as "an absolute joke," calling $500 "a drop in the bucket compared to what Americans are paying because Trump and Republicans gutted healthcare to bankroll massive tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations."
Woodhouse was referring to a Republican budget measure, signed into law last summer by Trump, that enacted more than $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade.
The GOP also declined last year to extend enhanced ACA subsidies that helped reduce costs for tens of millions of Americans, sending premiums skyrocketing. Some families have seen annual premium increases in the thousands of dollars, leading many to drop marketplace coverage entirely. ACA premiums are set to surge by double digits for a second consecutive year in 2027.
"At a time when people are scraping by to keep up with the high cost of groceries, rent, and healthcare, this $500 gimmick won’t even begin to dig them out of the hole that Trump and Republicans created," said Woodhouse.
The White House said ACA enrollees who "do not receive premium assistance" and who live in states that "use the federal exchange for the operations of their Obamacare markets" would be eligible for a rebate check, meaning the payments would disproportionately benefit enrollees with higher incomes in red states.
"The vast majority of ACA enrollees won't get $500 from the Trump administration, including: those who still get premium subsidies, though what they're paying has gone up a lot with expiration of enhanced tax credits. And, those in mostly blue states that run their own exchanges," noted Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF. "There are 19.2 million ACA enrollees. The Trump administration is talking about sending $500 rebate checks to fewer than one million of them."
Policy experts disputed the Trump administration's claim that Americans were "overcharged" due to the Biden administration's "gross mismanagement" of the ACA. As The Associated Press reported:
Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF, said it’s entirely possible that the funds Trump has promised came from fees collected during Trump’s first term. His first administration collected more user fees from insurers than it spent, resulting in an estimated $1 billion in unspent funds, according to KFF analysis.
It is unclear whether the $500 rebate represents what each enrollee may have overpaid, where the money for the rebates would come from, and whether it requires congressional approval for disbursement.
The White House's rebate check pledge came as Trump also vowed to send $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the November midterms, a promise that was widely derided.
"The 'Trump dividends' scam is just Trump’s latest attempt to distract the country from the Republican affordability crisis," said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). "Trump promised he would lower prices, and instead he keeps mashing the 'make stuff more expensive button.' The American people will not be fooled."
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Anger Grows Over 'Pathological Liar-in-Chief' Donald Trump's $5,000 Midterm Bribes
"Even for the notoriously corrupt and lawless Trump, this explicit and desperate attempt to buy votes in the November election is a new low," said one watchdog leader.
Sep 10, 2026
Many Democrats in Congress are on the growing list of critics calling out President Donald Trump for his Wednesday night vow to give US voters $5,000 each if they help Republicans win control of the Senate and House of Representatives—where they already have majorities—in the November midterm elections.
"Nothing says confidence like trying to bribe people for votes," Congressman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) quipped Thursday.
When Fox News' Laura Ingraham later asked, "Why not just give the money now?" Trump attempted to blame Democrats.
Noting the president's jumbled response to that question, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said: "I don't know what this even means, but I do know the reason Trump won't give a straight answer is that he doesn't really mean to send these checks to anyone. He has lied about this over and over again, and he's lying now. Just like he lied when he said he would lower costs."
Some critics highlighted other cases of Trump pledging to give Americans money, including alleged savings from the actions of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an effort spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk.
Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said: "So now it's $5,000 bribes that Trump will never deliver to attempt to make voters forget what they are paying for gas and food. What ever happened to those promised DOGE checks? Americans are not fools, we know he lies daily."
Blasting the president as "our pathological liar-in-chief," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also pointed to previous instances of Trump promising money, from a 10% cap on credit card interest rates to $2 for a gallon of gasoline.
"The Trump administration is not about helping working families," the former presidential candidate stressed. "It's about giving a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1% and throwing 15 million Americans off the healthcare they have."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has also sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, shared on social media Groundwork Collaborative's roundup of 15 times Trump has promised a check, dividend, or rebate—and not delivered.
Some Democratic governors also took aim at Trump. California's Gavin Newsom, who is expected to run for president in 2028, said: "After making you sicker and poorer with his war, Donald Trump now wants to buy your vote with $5,000 in taxpayer-funded blood money. The most corrupt man ever to occupy the Oval Office."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul emphasized that "Trump owes New Yorkers $13.5 billion for his illegal tariffs and hasn't paid up."
"Now he's dangling $5,000 checks if Republicans win Congress. A trillion-dollar campaign bribe from a guy who doesn't pay his bills," she added. "Fool me once…"
It's not just elected Democrats ripping Trump's new pledge. Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a Thursday statement that "even for the notoriously corrupt and lawless Trump, this explicit and desperate attempt to buy votes in the November election is a new low."
"Trump knows he can't do this, and yet he's attempting to bribe voters with the false promise of cash to help his party win an election, which is antithetical to every principle of American democracy," she continued. "Every Republican at the convention and across the country should loudly and vehemently denounce Trump for proposing this dangerous and transparently illegal scheme. The fact that no one has done that yet is cause for deep alarm about the future of American elections."
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Trump's Big Cash Gifts to Natalie Harp, Other Aides Were Likely Illegal, Complaint Alleges
"An investigation into this matter is clearly warranted, and, if a violation is indeed found, this matter must be referred to the Department of Justice."
Sep 10, 2026
A complaint submitted Thursday by a legal watchdog argues that US President Donald Trump's sizable cash gifts to political aide Natalie Harp and other White House staffers violated federal law because the payments improperly supplemented their government salaries.
"Laws prohibiting government employees from receiving supplemental income are not arbitrary; they exist to ensure that public servants’ priorities remain focused on public service, not a wealthy benefactor who may have other objectives in mind,” said Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel and senior director for ethics at Campaign Legal Center (CLC), which submitted the new complaint to the US Office of Government Ethics. “An investigation into this matter is clearly warranted, and, if a violation is indeed found, this matter must be referred to the Department of Justice."
The complaint came days after financial disclosures revealed that Trump has doled out gifts totaling $155,000 to several staffers, including Harp, a former far-right news anchor whose role in the White House and relationship with the president have drawn close scrutiny in recent weeks.
Harp, Trump's most loyal aide, received a $45,000 cash gift from the president. Her salary, according to the White House, is $150,000 per year. Trump also gifted White House communications adviser Margo Martin and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris $45,000 each. The Washington Post reported that the three payments were described as "Cash Gift for Holidays."
Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, received a $20,000 gift from the president.
CLC's complaint points to 18 US Code § 209, which prohibits executive branch employees from receiving "any salary, or any contribution to or supplementation of salary," from "any source other than the government of the United States, except as may be contributed out of the treasury of any state, county, or municipality."
The watchdog group noted that, when the gifts from the president are included, the four recipients were effectively compensated at the maximum salary for a full-time White House employee—a "rate for which they were ineligible" due to their junior roles.
"In paying White House employees funds beyond their government salaries, President Trump has created the same scenarios Congress specifically contemplated and sought to prevent," the complaint states. "Additionally, it raises the legitimate question as to whether President Trump is paying them for acting on his personal behalf, rather than in the interests of the public. For these reasons, it is important that the OGE investigate whether these payments were impermissibly made."
According to the Post, "there are no other public instances of US presidents giving staff employed by the White House large cash payments. Government ethics experts said they were not aware of any other payments of this scale from a superior to a subordinate government worker."
Richard Briffault, a professor of legislation at Columbia Law School, told NBC News that Trump's cash payments to aides appeared to be "technically illegal."
“Bosses will give gifts to their assistants,” said Briffault. "[But] these are substantial sums—much more than the usual Christmas gifts for most people."
Despite the apparently unprecedented and unlawful nature of the gifts, Briffault said there is "zero chance" that the current Justice Department—headed by Trump's former personal attorney, Todd Blanche—will investigate the payments.
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Warning AI 'Could Mean the Demise of Humanity,' El-Sayed Backs Development Pause
"Enough is enough. We need to make sure that the pace of development isn't outpacing the pace of risk."
Sep 10, 2026
Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan on Wednesday called for a pause in advanced artificial intelligence development, warning that the technology is progressing faster than governments and researchers can establish meaningful safeguards against potentially catastrophic consequences.
"You might have woken up like me to this tweet from a guy you probably never heard of until today. His name is Jacob Coxon," El-Sayed said in a video posted to social media. "Up until yesterday, he worked for an AI lab called Anthropic, one of the leading-edge AI research organizations in the world. He quit yesterday. He quit because he's worried that the technology that he was building could end humanity."
"That's something we should be paying attention to," the 41-year-old epidemiologist stressed.
Coxon said on social media that neither OpenAI—whose rogue machine agents recently hacked outside systems on multiple reported occasions—nor Anthropic "is acting responsibly" as they race against competitors at home and abroad to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), an advanced AI that can understand, learn, and apply knowledge of any subject as well as or better than a typical human.
"They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives," he emphasized. "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt."
El-Sayed said that the AI Under Democracy plan his campaign released in July—which called for a new federal regulatory agency akin to the Food and Drug Administration to oversee development of artificial intelligence technology—doesn't go far enough. Instead, he is now backing a pause in AI development, as urged by US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last month.
Earlier this month, Sanders and Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, with the Vermont senator arguing that "the future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs."
Many of those oligarchs and other AI pioneers also believe their products could one day wipe out humanity, but are rushing to build them anyway so that their competitors don't reap the rewards of being the first to achieve AGI.
Sanders is also reportedly preparing to convene a bipartisan Senate hearing next week on the dangers of AI, with special guests set to include Geoffrey Hinton, who quit Google in 2023 so he could sound the alarm on what he estimates is a 10–20% chance that AI could cause human extinction within three decades.
"Enough is enough," El-Sayed said Wednesday. "We need to make sure that the pace of development isn't outpacing the pace of risk. We cannot, in a race against China or a race for these corporations to be the dominant AI manufacturer, inadvertently create products that slip human control, that could fall into the wrong hands, that could mean the demise of humanity."
"That is a risk none of us ought to be able to bear, and it certainly shouldn't sit with the richest, most powerful corporations in the world on incentives that are driven by their greed rather than our well-being," he added. "So the time for action is now."
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'Massive Loss for Trump': US Supreme Court Tosses Missouri GOP Map, Again
"The Missouri Supreme Court should throw the secretary of state in jail if this extremist continues to defy the law and multiple court orders," said US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Sep 10, 2026
Democracy defenders in Missouri and across the United States celebrated on Thursday after the US Supreme Court delivered its second blow to President Donald Trump's gerrymandering quest in as many days, tossing out the state GOP's desired congressional map.
The order had no noted dissents, despite the court's right-wing supermajority, which includes three Trump appointees. Among them is Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who had rejected the GOP's emergency effort to uphold the map on Tuesday evening, as US District Judge Stephen Clark, another appointee of the president, said that Missouri can't revert to its old map for the November midterms.
The high court's new order appears to allow the state to use the old map for the upcoming elections, in which Trump's Republican Party is trying to hold on to its narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress amid widespread voter dissatisfaction with an affordability crisis fueled by the president's tariff regime and illegal war on Iran.
On the heels of the Texas GOP's map-rigging effort last year, Missouri Republicans targeted the 5th Congressional District—currently held by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D), who has joined hundreds of thousands of state voters in opposing the new political lines.
Cleaver called Thursday's decision "a win for justice. A win for democracy. A win for the people of Missouri."
"It is my hope that state officials will start following court orders and end this shameful attempt to break Missouri law and silence Missouri voters," he said.
Opposition to the map has been spearheaded by the nonpartisan coalition People Not Politicians Missouri, whose executive director, Richard von Glahn, declared Thursday that "the law is the law, the Missouri Constitution is clear, as was the Missouri Supreme Court."
"Over 305,000 Missouri voters—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents—took action to block this political power grab last fall. People, not politicians, will have the final say when they vote NO on Proposition A this November," he continued, referring to a veto referendum on the GOP's map.
Von Glahn also took aim at Missouri's Republican secretary of state, Denny Hoskins, who faces a contempt hearing at the state's top court, saying that he "has shown that he cannot effectively do the job he was elected to do—administer elections."
"First he refused to certify a referendum the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously said he had no legal basis to block," Von Glahn explained. "Then, even after that court barred the 2025 map outright, he told local election officials to use it anyway, leaving election clerks scrambling with early voting two weeks away. That isn't leadership, it's chaos of his own making, and it's why he's now facing a contempt hearing in front of the very court whose order he chose to defy."
"Missourians don't need a secretary of state who manufactures confusion; they need one who follows the law," he added. "Denny Hoskins has had every chance to do that and chose not to. The courts have settled this, now it's up to Missouri voters to finish the job and vote NO on Proposition A."
US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also called out Hoskins after the Thursday decision, suggesting on social media that "the Missouri Supreme Court should throw the secretary of state in jail if this extremist continues to defy the law and multiple court orders."
"You lost," he said. "The people of Missouri have won. It's over."
The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday found that Hoskins was in contempt of court for defying an order blocking the new map, but also that he is now in compliance because he directed the use of the 2022 districts.
This article has been updated with comment from US Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) and Adam Cochran, and with the Missouri Supreme Court's decision.
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To Boost Profits, Medicare Advantage Giants Move to Kick Over a Million Seniors Off Their Plans
Humana said it is exiting plans covering roughly 600,000 seniors to "drive the intended margin expansion."
Sep 10, 2026
Two of the largest Medicare Advantage insurers in the US, UnitedHealthcare and Humana, have signaled in recent days that they plan to exit certain "underperforming" markets and curb benefits in an effort to boost their bottom lines, a strategy that's expected to kick more than a million seniors from their coverage.
On Thursday, Axios cited an analyst note published earlier this week indicating that UnitedHealthcare "has dropped around 13% of plans offered across 18 states." Healthcare Dive reported that the company "expects to end 2026 with up to 1.1 million fewer MA members than it had last year."
"UnitedHealthcare—the largest MA insurer in the US—offered plans in one fewer state and 109 fewer counties this year, cut allowances for certain over-the-counter health and wellness items, and prioritized plan designs with more limited provider networks," Healthcare Dive noted. "The company also shifted commissions to brokers to incentivize enrollment in more profitable plans."
As for Humana, the company's chief financial officer said during an earnings call in late July that its exit from certain markets and dropping of specific plans would "impact approximately 600,000 members" as the firm implements "the changes necessary to drive the intended margin expansion."
Seniors who lose their MA plans in response to the insurance giants' moves will have to either find a new plan during open enrollment, which begins next month, or switch to traditional Medicare. MA plans currently cover more than half of all eligible Medicare beneficiaries.
Mark Meiselbach, a healthcare economist at Johns Hopkins University, has estimated that nearly 3 million people enrolled in MA will be forced to switch coverage this year due to insurers canceling their plans—which Meiselbach describes as "forced disenrollments."
“For most enrollees, they will likely be able to still find a comparable MA plan,” Meiselbach told Investopedia last week. “However, no two plans are exactly the same. They may still have access to their same primary care provider, but have to undergo new prior authorization for a medication or lose a supplemental benefit they relied on.”
The companies laid out their profit-boosting strategies months after the Trump administration provided a substantial payment increase to Medicare Advantage plans, which are run by private companies and funded by taxpayer dollars. MA companies are notorious for denying necessary care and overbilling the federal government through practices such as upcoding, whereby patients are made to appear sicker than they are to reap a larger federal payment.
"President Trump, Dr. Oz, and leaders in Congress have talked a big game for two years about reining in waste, fraud, and abuse, but instead they increased insurer payment by multiple times more than what the administration originally proposed," Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, said in response to the April payment hike.
During his remarks to the GOP midterm convention on Wednesday, President Donald Trump vowed to "stop all government payments to big insurance companies"—an apparently inadvertent call for the elimination of privately run Medicare Advantage plans, which received over $534 billion from the federal government last year.
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'We Want Real Change': Sanders-Backed Democratic Socialist Wins Mayoral Primary in Providence
"Nearly a year ago this day, we launched a campaign centered around the simple vision that the working people who make Providence home deserve to live here."
Sep 10, 2026
David Morales, a 27-year-old democratic socialist endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, scored an upset victory on Wednesday to become the Democratic Party's nominee for mayor of Providence, Rhode Island.
As noted in a Thursday report in The Washington Post, Morales made concerns about housing affordability central to his campaign pitch, and he assailed incumbent Democratic Mayor Brett Smiley for vetoing a proposal passed by the Providence City Council to enforce a 4% annual cap on rent increases.
Morales reinforced this theme during his Wednesday night victory speech.
"Nearly a year ago this day, we launched a campaign centered around the simple vision," Morales said, "that the working people who make Providence home deserve to live here. A simple vision that our neighbors deserve a mayor who will fight for them."
"Together, we organized, day in and day out," Morales added, "sharing our vision of how we build a city all our neighbors can afford and feel safe calling home."
David Morales is 27 years old.
The youngest Latino ever elected to the Rhode Island legislature.
Tonight he beat an incumbent mayor in Providence — after that mayor vetoed rent stabilization for working families.
Bernie endorsed him. The people chose him.
Nobody can stop this… pic.twitter.com/qrP4BAwd0G
— Ezequiel Aguilar (@EzequielAguilar) September 10, 2026
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, hailed Morales' victory as "another sign that something powerful is taking root across this country."
"Working-class candidates are rejecting an establishment politics that asks people to settle for less and instead showing what government can actually do for them," Geevarghese emphasized. "From city councils and mayor’s offices to statehouses and Congress, we are seeing candidates build support by organizing from the bottom up and focusing directly on the economic pressures facing working people."
Sanders in a Thursday social media post congratulated Morales for his win, which he said was a sign that voters are fed up with politics as usual.
"From coast to coast, Americans are clear: No more status quo politics," wrote Sanders. "We want real change."
Morales wasn't the only progressive insurgent in Providence to declare victory on Wednesday.
As reported by the Brown Daily Herald, challenger Miguel Youngs, who received endorsements from the Rhode Island Working Families Party and the Providence Teachers Union, ousted incumbent John Goncalves to become the Democratic Party's nominee to represent Ward 1 on the Providence City Council.
Similar to Morales, Youngs made capping rent increases a major theme of his campaign, attacking Goncalves for voting against the rent control proposal earlier this year.
Progressives have been upsetting the Democratic establishment in mayoral races across the US, as both New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson last year won with the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America.
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Trump, Who Calls Medicare for All Too Expensive, Vows $5,000 to Every US Adult—If GOP Wins Midterms
"Yeah, just like we got a $2,000 tariff refund, a 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a 500% cut in prescription drug prices, $2 gas."
Sep 10, 2026
US President Donald Trump pledged on Wednesday to send every American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans keep control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections, a promise that was widely seen as a desperate ploy to distract from a flagging economy and the destructive impacts of the Iran war.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000," Trump declared in his address to the GOP's midterm convention in Dallas. The president, who recently railed against Medicare for All as too costly, called his proposed payment "the Trump Dividend," but did not mention its potential price tag. Snap estimates indicate the checks, which would require congressional approval, would likely cost more than $1.3 trillion—close to the size of the discretionary federal budget.
Warren Gunnels, staff director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—the leading Medicare for All champion in Congress—derided Trump's promise by comparing it to other campaign pledges that have not materialized.
"Yeah, just like we got a $2,000 tariff refund, a 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a 500% cut in prescription drug prices, $2 gas, oh wait…what?" Gunnels wrote on social media.
"Here is my promise, if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the U.S Senate, both of them...because of our tremendous strength and success economically I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000." pic.twitter.com/Iy7OVq5vpk
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 10, 2026
Trump's midterm pledge came days after he responded dismissively to a reporter's question about Medicare for All, which would provide every person in the US with comprehensive health coverage at a lower cost overall than the current, privatized system.
The president falsely claimed that a single-payer system would cost "the entire budget of the whole country." But a recent study by researchers at Yale University estimated that Medicare for All would save the US roughly $1 trillion per year in national healthcare expenditures while also saving more than 114,000 lives annually.
Trump also suggested earlier this year that the federal government can't afford to pay for childcare and other programs because "we're fighting wars."
A recent analysis by the Joint Economic Committee found that the average household in the US has had to pay an additional $3,800 on energy and other essentials since the start of Trump's second term, in part due to the president's decision to launch an illegal war on Iran.
The Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University estimates that Trump's war on Iran has cost US consumers over $102 billion extra, combined, on gas and diesel fuel.
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