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Senate Dems Push GOP to Divulge Secret Plan to 'Attack Earned Benefits Like Social Security'
"A plan you will not show the voters before they vote is not reassurance. It is a warning and revealing of Republican priorities.”
Aug 05, 2026
In early June, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said the GOP has a "plan" to reform Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—but would not release the details until "next year," after the 2026 midterms.
But a group of Senate Democrats argued in a letter to Republican leaders on Wednesday that "Americans deserve to have full transparency into Republican plans to attack earned benefits like Social Security." The Democrats—led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Chuck Schumer of New York—wrote that "it is time for Republicans to put their money where their mouth is" and "release the plan referenced by Speaker Johnson."
The letter was released as the Senate Finance Committee convened a hearing titled "Exploring Process Approaches for Addressing Social Security Solvency," where Wyden and other Democrats blasted proposals to raise the retirement age and cut Social Security benefits through unaccountable commissions.
"Every time Republicans get their hands on these sorts of ideas for Social Security, life gets worse for older people that count on it to get by," said Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. "All we need to do is require billionaires, who have seen their wealth skyrocket to over $9 trillion this year while working people struggle with their grocery bills, to pay their fair share."
According to Social Security's Board of Trustees, the New Deal program's Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will be unable to pay out full benefits by the end of 2032. Members of the Senate Democratic caucus, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), have introduced legislation that would extend Social Security's ability to pay full benefits for the next 75 years—but neither bill has garnered Republican support.
"We've got a plan. We're not ashamed of our plan," Whitehouse said during Wednesday's hearing. "You actually make people who are making huge amounts of income pay the same Social Security taxes as everybody else, all the way up the rest of their income."
"It's just a question of political will," the senator continued, "and of some people not wanting to own what they want to do to Social Security."
In a radio interview earlier this year, Johnson (R-La) declared that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid must be "adjusted and fixed," but did not offer any specific details or policy prescriptions.
"We have a plan to do that," Johnson said, "next year."
House Republicans have previously floated changes such as raising the full Social Security retirement age, which would cut benefits across the board.
In their Wednesday letter to Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senate Democrats wrote that "it is critical that the American people understand where Republicans truly stand regarding our preeminent economic security program."
"For decades, Republicans have attacked and undercut Social Security, aiming to cut benefits or privatize the program," the Democratic lawmakers wrote. "A plan you will not show the voters before they vote is not reassurance. It is a warning and revealing of Republican priorities.”
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Celebrate Medicare and Medicaid—and Protect Them From Trump!
Trump and his allies in Congress have not so much dismantled these programs yet as chipped away at them; if this movement continues unabated, we may be left with the crumbling foundations of programs that were built to last.
Jul 30, 2026
There is reason to celebrate Medicare and Medicaid turning 61 years old. Both highly successful programs were signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 30, 1965 as a cornerstone of his Great Society agenda. But this year, our celebration is tempered by grave concern over the future of both programs under the Trump regime.
Let’s compare the words of the two presidents:
LBJ:
No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents.
It’s not possible for us to take care of… Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.
The comparison speaks volumes. One is a leader who understood that the federal government has a crucial role in the protecting the health and well-being of our most vulnerable citizens—including the poor, disabled, and the elderly. The other is a president who claims to support Medicare and then says that the federal government can’t afford it because of his illegal war in Iran. So much for supporting Medicare.
But this goes deeper than Trump’s rhetoric. The Medicare program, like Social Security, is at a pivotal point in its history. The Part A hospital) trust fund must be fortified so that it doesn’t run dry in the 2030s. (There are reasonable solutions that Congress could enact without hurting seniors.) So far, though, we have heard no constructive ideas from Trump.
More urgently, though, the Trump administration is actively undermining the "traditional Medicare" program that LBJ signed into law. The administration has begun a pilot program to use AI bots to determine whether traditional Medicare patients will be covered for procedures their doctors have ordered. This appears to be an attempt to cut costs by erecting obstacles to medically necessary care—with decisions made by bots instead of human beings.
It could be the first step in a scheme to corrupt traditional Medicare and make it more like the privatized Medicare Advantage program run by for-profit insurers, which is a glorified HMO (with frequent denials of care, limited provider networks, and surprise out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries). Unfortunately, thanks to deceptive but pervasive advertising, Medicare Advantage has now captured more than 51% of the market, leaving traditional Medicare with a shrinking share of enrollees.
The problem is that Medicare Advantage (MA) puts profits over patients. Participating insurance companies have been overbilling the federal government by billions of dollars a year. Ironically, this privatized program was supposed to save taxpayers money. Instead, Medicare Advantage plans cost the government an average of 14% more per patient than traditional Medicare. That translates into an additional $76 billion in federal spending this year alone.
The bottom line: Medicare Advantage puts taxpayers’ money into the hands of large insurance companies while failing to deliver superior or more cost-effective care. It is fair to say that this is not what LBJ had in mind when he created the public Medicare program. (Medicare Advantage arrived—in nascent form—in 1997, after considerable pressure from the insurance industry.)
When we talk about the financial shortfall facing the Medicare program, we must look at Medicare Advantage as an aggravating factor. Reining-in MA would go a long way toward restoring the overall program to fiscal health—along with other commonsense reforms. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has been inconsistent on this issue, initially floating strict curbs on MA overpayments but ultimately rewarding insurance companies with higher payouts.
Traditional Medicare is far from perfect. It should have caps on patients’ out-of-pocket medical costs. It should cover vision, dental, and hearing care. (President Joe Biden attempted to expand coverage in the ill-fated Build Back Better Act.) These are improvements that we have long urged Congress and the White House to enact.
Medicare also faces compound financial challenges—including the overall rise in healthcare costs and soaring prescription drug prices. The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress took a major step in the right direction with the Inflation Reduction Act, which empowered Medicare to negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma. This process is expected to save the government more than $230 billion by 2031.
For the most part, the Trump administration has adhered to the law and continued negotiating with drugmakers—but it also expanded the list of cancer drugs that won’t be eligible for negotiations. The president has largely relied on smoke and mirrors to make it appear that the administration is "tough on Big Pharma," using gimmicks like TrumpRx. Meanwhile, in a move that will make medications less affordable for seniors, the Trump administration has just announced it is ending Biden-era subsidies in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.
Of course, it’s also Medicaid’s 61st anniversary. The damage that Trump and the Republicans have done to Medicare’s sister program would take up another entire article. Suffice it to say that more than 3 million Americans have already lost health coverage since Trump and the GOP enacted their Big, Ugly Bill, which slashed nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid. (This also hurts older people dually enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid.) It was correctly labeled the biggest cut in healthcare in US history—to pay for tax cuts largely benefiting the wealthy.
The political right has always been wary of the New Deal and Great Society legacy programs that lifted people out of poverty and provided older and lower-income Americans with basic retirement and health security. Some on the right have outright committed themselves to dismantling these programs, despite their distinguished histories. Trump and his allies in Congress have not so much dismantled these programs yet as chipped away at them under the guise of fighting "fraud and abuse." If this movement continues unabated, we may be left with the crumbling foundations of programs that were built to last, for the good of the American people.
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How to Celebrate Medicare's 61st Birthday? Expand It to Everyone
Medicare has become living proof that public, universal health insurance is superior to private insurance in every way.
Jul 30, 2026
Sixty one years ago, July 30, 1965, Congress enacted Medicare to provide health insurance for people ages 65 and older and the disabled regardless of income or medical history. At the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, former President Harry S. Truman and his wife, former First Lady Bess Truman, became the first recipients of the new Medicare health insurance program. President Lyndon Johnson and the US Congress enacted Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act.
Medicare was a momentous act because it provided new health insurance for people ages 65 and older and the disabled regardless of income or medical history. In the years since, Medicare has become living proof that public, universal health insurance is superior to private insurance in every way. Medicare is more efficient than private health insurance and is administered at a cost of 3-4%, as opposed to private, for-profit health insurance, which has administrative costs above 15%.
Following the successful 1965 grassroots campaign to enact Medicare, many also believed that the dream of a full national, single-payer health insurance system that included all age groups, “Medicare for All,” was right around the corner. Unfortunately decades later, Medicare still has not been expanded. Most of the changes have been contractions with higher out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries and repeated attempts at privatization by Big Pharma, Big health insurance industry companies-oligarchs-profiteers, and their champions in the White House and Congress.
Big insurance and Big Pharma continue opposing legislation for the new, improved Medicare for All because these resistant, self-serving industries have the most to lose if their huge profits are redirected to direct patient care for all. Individual and corporate predators regard democracy, government, and community as obstacles to their greed and avarice, always placing profits over individual patients, families, and public health. It’s no wonder so many beholden members of Congress want to protect the interests of Big Insurance and Big Pharma, industries that spent $371 million on lobbying in 2017 alone.
The Big Health Insurance-Big Pharma-Congressional Profiteering Complex
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, framed by former Trump administration staffers and secretly endorsed by President Donald Trump himself, proposes changes in Medicare benefits that could destroy Medicare as we know it. Instead, we must fight back and expand Medicare. Although health insurance affordability for the majority of US citizens still remains elusive, President Trump’s health insurance plan still wants to shift many more dollars into private, Wall Street insurance industry hands. The takeover of public health insurance, as with Medicare Advantage plans and others, by private Wall Street entities continues apace as Republicans and Trump propose to increase taxes and give it to the private profit insurance industry—the basic source of our profound administrative waste, along with the costly administrative burdens they place on the delivery system that requires large profits. Profiteering continues unabated as private insurance sells us services we don’t need or want, such as deductibles and other cost sharing and maintenance of narrow networks, requiring prior authorization with increased administrative costs, excessive ongoing paperwork, and documentation requirements, all while avoiding paying for surprise bills and other denied benefits.
No greater disconnect exists between the public good and private interests than in the voracious US system of for-profit Big Insurance and Big Pharma.
Dealing with Covid-19 could have been more lifesaving if Medicare for All had been in place. A New York Times editorial, "Health Care for Some is a Recipe for Disaster," stresses the importance of covering everyone. Even before Covid-19 was known to humans, Northeastern University professor of public health, Wendy Parmet, presciently warned that the push to exclude immigrants from access to healthcare services would be both dangerous and quixotic. “None of us can be self-sufficient in the face of a widespread epidemic,” she wrote in 2018. “That is just as true for noncitizen immigrants as everyone.” In any pandemic, self-sufficiency can be self-deluding; everyone’s health, citizens, immigrants, etc. alike is only as good as our most vulnerable neighbor’s.
Truly a recipe for disaster, vested interests reject the science of public health epidemiology by asserting that only a slow, incremental approach to health insurance reform is possible or acceptable. So, what are we willing to settle for, should we just settle for what we can get? Lower the expectations, turn down the public heat, and keep waiting?. Gradualism, baby steps, extending health insurance coverage to some, but not all, is the mantra of the day; "Medicare for Some," but not "Medicare for All," is fawned over by politicians, profiteers, and advocacy groups alike while reducing communities resources to deal with dangerous epidemics and other health problems.
Virtually all the risky gradual reforms being touted would reinforce a dysfunctional health insurance system with as many standards of insurance as there are dollars to purchase them. It would further lock us into an obsolete private insurance-based model that holds everyone's health hostage to profiteering HMOs and unaccountable big insurance companies for years to come. For these proponents of political expediency, the question remains: Who will be left behind while we wait? Every year many unnecessary deaths are linked to lack of health insurance coverage. Pandemics can quickly increase these numbers.
Big Insurance and Big Pharma dominate our government, and public health takes a back seat to the need for private profit. Many government leaders from both political parties share the same "profits over public health" ideology, even though the Covid-19 pandemic clearly showed how our economic system failed to serve our citizens by allowing these groups to privatize, sabotage, fragment, and cripple our health, public health, and other social services. Many of the changes in traditional Medicare have been contractions with higher out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries and repeated attempts at privatization by Big Pharma, and Big Health insurance. No greater disconnect exists between the public good and private interests than in the voracious US system of for-profit Big Insurance and Big Pharma and their inherent tendency to invent new needs, disregard all boundaries, and turn everything into an object for sale and big profit.
Medicare for All 2026 Meets Eight High Standards
Medicare for All Act (M4A)-2026 is best solution because it meets eight basic standards:
- Health insurance coverage should be stable and permanent throughout life. M4A-2026 would be a single program—permanent throughout life.
- Employer-sponsored insurance can create problems such as job lock, which many conservatives and progressives believe should be terminated. M4A-2026 would end employer-sponsored insurance, and, for most, M4A-2026 would be better.
- Medicaid carries the stigma of being a welfare program which results in legislative underfunding and neglect. M4A-2026 would fully terminate the Medicaid program and move everyone into a universal, comprehensive, and equitable program.
- We need a program that is affordable for each individual and for society as a whole. M4A-2026 would achieve all goals of financing reform without significantly increasing spending.
- Patients should have free choice of their professionals and healthcare institutions. M4A-2026 allows choices within the entire healthcare system.
- The privatization of public programs such as Medicare through Medicare Advantage and Medicaid through private managed care programs have proven to provide poor value for the taxpayer (obscured by cherry-picking and lemon dropping) and should be eliminated. M4A-2026 would eliminate them.
- Fragmentation results in dysfunctional financing of healthcare; M4A-2026 would bring an end to it.
- M4A-2026 is specifically designed to greatly reduce fragmentation and its associated costs; health insurance industry profiteering is ended.
Summary
To continue our 61 years of progress, it’s time to upgrade Medicare by establishing a 21st century improved “Medicare for All” health insurance system that covers all age groups, cradle to grave. Newborns will leave the hospital with their new Medicare card, and drop it off years later at life’s end. Two comprehensive M4A bills now filed in Congress, H.R. 3069 and S.1506, propose to insure or cover all medically necessary services. Patients have their choice of physicians, mental health professionals, other healthcare professionals, hospitals, and clinics.
M4A insured health services include:- Primary care
- Medically approved diet and nutrition services
- Inpatient care
- Outpatient care
- Emergency care
- Prescription drugs
- Long-term care and palliative care
- Mental health services
- Dentistry
- Eye care
- Substance abuse treatment
Because our government, instead of private profit health insurance companies, serves us as the health insurance financing authority, co-pays and deductibles paid at health professionals' offices are ended because payment for health insurance is fully prepaid directly into Medicare, much like Social Security, and covered at first dollar amounts. This means the obsolete 80%-20% payment split between private health insurance companies and Medicare is eliminated, with Medicare for All covering 100%.
The major reason private health insurers are more expensive than government health programs in the US is due to profiteering and administrative costs. Those extra taxpayer funds going to private insurers include costs such as advertising and marketing of their plans, costs of contracting for restrictive provider networks, administering prior authorization requirements, complex systems of processing claims including denial of benefits, simple administrative costs of operating large corporate entities, and distributing generous profits to their executives and passive high profiteering by Wall Street investors.
The Medicare for All Act-2026, now filed in Congress, would much better fill our healthcare financing needs without wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on superfluous administrative costs and end immense profiteering by private insurers and Big Pharma. The USA is a country where health insurance for medical and mental healthcare is a function of socioeconomic status. Everyone knows that this inhumane system should have been corrected long ago.
Please tell your legislators that it’s time to end inadequate and dangerous health insurance programs. Insist on real health insurance reform essential for individuals and families. American history is filled with examples of fundamental, democratic change brought about by successful mass action and public pressure against the counseling of the go-slow, vested-interest crowd. No more waiting! Ask your legislators to fully support Medicare For All 2026 now: H.R. 3069 and S. 1506
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Republicans Want to Dismantle Medicare; Democrats Must Fight for Medicare for All
While America’s current healthcare system is painfully vulnerable to Republican attacks, there is an opportunity to create a better future where all Americans can rely on guaranteed healthcare.
Jul 30, 2026
Sixty-one years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, while former President and long-time national health insurance champion Harry Truman watched. What Johnson and Truman understood was that the fight for guaranteed healthcare for everyone has been a generations-long struggle. The creation of Medicare and Medicaid was a key victory in that struggle. Importantly, though, Medicare and Medicaid are—to paraphrase what President Franklin Roosevelt said about the signing of Social Security into law—“a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete.”
After President Truman was unable to achieve his goal of guaranteed healthcare for all Americans, healthcare advocates decided to move incrementally. They began by pushing to cover seniors. Older Americans have the highest medical costs, the hardest time affording private health insurance, and need care the most often. The signing of Medicare achieved this important milestone, alongside the creation of Medicaid to cover healthcare for low-income Americans.
In 1972, Medicare was expanded to cover people with disabilities. But that is where progress stopped. It is well past time that we expand Medicare to cover children and everyone in between. We must also improve Medicare to cover such vital services as hearing, vision, dental and, perhaps most importantly, long-term care. And we must, in this age of abhorrent income and wealth inequality, require the wealthiest to contribute more while eliminating all premiums, co-payments, co-insurance, and deductibles.
Currently, we are at a crossroads. While America’s current healthcare system is painfully vulnerable to Republican attacks, there is an opportunity to create a better future where all Americans can rely on guaranteed healthcare.
With Republicans doing everything they can to disrupt and dismantle the current healthcare system, it is the perfect time to fight for a more durable and universal alternative.
Shamefully, Republicans are chipping away at both Medicare and Medicaid. The attacks take many forms. They include the effort to confuse Americans with the inferior, propagandistically named “Medicare Advantage;” the Trump administration giving AI the power to overrule doctors and block care for Medicare patients; the $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill (beautiful for billionaires, ugly for everyone else) passed by Republicans; and new Republican rules for Medicaid that would force cancer patients to get back to work and would cause millions of Americans to lose their healthcare coverage. Though Republican politicians would deny it, their hostility to Medicare and Medicaid is overwhelming.
Meanwhile, Democrats are working to expand and improve Medicare and Medicaid. They have taken concrete steps to lower prescription drug prices. The Inflation Reduction Act, which gives Medicare the power to negotiate for lower prices, was signed into law by a Democratic president, Joe Biden. Democrats are fighting to provide those same savings to those with commercial insurance and lower prices in other ways as well. Importantly, a growing number of Democrats are supporting and fighting for improved and expanded Medicare for All.
It may seem daunting and overwhelming to think about achieving improved and expanded Medicare for All in the current political environment, but it is within sight. Indeed, I have written a book-length road map to achieving improved and expanded Medicare for All, which will be released this September. It is called The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action (Routledge Press, forthcoming, 2026).
What would improved and expanded Medicare for All mean? It would mean this: no premiums, co-pays, co-insurance, or deductibles. It would mean comprehensive healthcare coverage for everyone in America, automatically. It would mean going to the doctor of your choice, without worrying whether your provider is in your insurer’s network. The vision of improved Medicare for All would include all services being covered automatically, including dental, vision, and hearing coverage. Medicare should also be expanded to cover long-term care, both at home and in nursing homes.
This November’s election will determine the future of Medicare and Medicaid. Will Republicans make Medicare and Medicaid work even worse for Americans? Will even more hospitals and nursing homes close? Or will Democrats be able to fight back and not only defend Medicare and Medicaid from Republican attacks, but enact a bold vision of improved and expanded Medicare for All?
With Republicans doing everything they can to disrupt and dismantle the current healthcare system, it is the perfect time to fight for a more durable and universal alternative: improved and expanded Medicare for All. Instead of a precarious and shaky patchwork system where a disruption to your healthcare is one job loss or plan change away, it is time to fight for a world where healthcare is truly a right, not a privilege.
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For 61 Years, We Protected Medicare—Now, Trumpublicans Are Trying to Destroy It
We can fight back to defend and secure our health access, but it will take all of us.
Jul 30, 2026
On the eve of Medicare/Medicaid’s 61st birthday, the Trumpublican administration took its next swipe at those millions of American seniors who rely on their Medicare benefits to survive. The announcement of cuts to the Biden administration’s Medicare drug subsidies was made on Tuesday, July 27th, 2026, allegedly because the insurance companies don’t need the subsidies anymore. But guess what? The health insurance companies that market, sell, and profit from the Medicare-Part D drug plans won’t be the ones paying the difference. Patients, their families, and all those cool GoFundMes will pay the higher Part D premiums, any at the pharmacy counter differences, or they will ration doses or go without. You doubt that? I sure don’t.
Just a few days ago, I chatted with some younger folks I know who are employed and getting their health benefits from their employers. Both are with major employers; both have major health insurance carriers. And both have health issues that need to be checked out and treated appropriately before those issues become worse and even more costly. Why don’t these working professionals with insurance go to the doctor—or even have a primary care doctor? They fear the out-of-pocket costs. Deductibles. Co-pays. Co-insurance. Then to the lab, the radiologist, and maybe the pharmacy. All the same costs might be in play again for more cash out-of-pocket. Why pay premiums at all? Why stay at a job they cannot stand for years on end to keep the benefits they rarely if ever use?
The answer to my questions is the basis for the incredible profit margins enjoyed—dearly and completely enjoyed—by the private health insurance industry. Selling a product everyone buys through work or earns through decades of loyal service yet never uses is really a sweet business arrangement. Medicare may seem like a completely different kind of coverage because it has been and could be again—but as the Trumpublicans work to make Medicare even more privatized via Medicare Advantage plans, supplemental plans, and outright cuts to coverage like these drug subsidies, Medicare beneficiaries will make the same ill-advised and often risky decisions as those clinging to their employer-based coverage before they reach the Medicare age of eligibility (or two years after they are determined disabled at younger ages). It was never the insurance companies that needed subsidies or expansion of benefits. It was always all of us who needed less private insurance and more coverage—all of us.
The Trumpublicans already had help from their congressional minions in cutting Medicaid access for millions of families—children, babies, mothers, dads. Medicaid work requirements cost more to follow through admin efforts than the coverage did, but Trumpublican minions want those lazy, poor people milking the system on Medicaid to be punished. This was never about program integrity or catching the minimal fraud with Medicaid or Medicare that is done (fraud is mostly done by providers, not patients or beneficiaries). The cuts to Medicaid came with the “Big, beautiful bill,” H.R.1, last year, and the Medicare cuts are rolling along in the background. When open enrollment is looming large in late fall and early winter, the Trumpublicans must announce changes with enough time for the insurance companies to adjust or raise premiums, of course. How do the rest of us adjust? The patients and families? Take another job to pay? Keep working until we are 80 or more?
The only reason not to move confidently to full health coverage for us all is that the profits are so dear with the status quo. We are better than this.
Social Security Works, Progressive Democrats of America, Healthcare-NOW!, and many other groups have great ways to get involved for all of us too. Do it today before the fight grows even more dire—we can secure our health access, but it will take all of us.
So, get over to your elected officials offices on July 30, 2026. Celebrate with nurses, doctors, friends, and neighbors. In Colorado, we’re going to tell Republican Rep. Gabe Evans to reverse the damage and protect his constituents or we plan to “Give Gabe the Boot” in November. Add yourself to the growing chorus of Americans calling for a celebration of Medicare and Medicaid programs and expansions of that gorgeous insurance pool to include all of us. Because if all of us cover all of us then all of us spend less and our employers do too. Another amazing chance to secure healthcare justice rests with electing Sam Forstag in Montana’s 1st Congressional District.
The only reason not to move confidently to full health coverage for us all is that the profits are so dear with the status quo. We are better than this. We proved it 61 years ago, and we will prove ourselves ready to advance when we stop allowing so much greed to control Trumpublicans in DC and demand our own self-preservation to be honored.
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'Countless Seniors Will Soon Pay More': Trump Ends Subsidy for Medicare Prescription Drug Plans
"Donald Trump and Republicans are making healthcare more expensive for seniors at every turn."
Jul 29, 2026
The Trump administration on Tuesday said it would end a subsidy program that helped lower premiums for seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, a move that's expected to increase monthly costs for millions of Americans amid a broader affordability crisis.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), headed by Mehmet Oz, announced "the conclusion of the Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration" for the coming year, just months before the start of Medicare open enrollment. Oz characterized the subsidy program as a "bailout" for insurance companies and said that "premiums will go up by less than $10 for most Medicare recipients."
But The Wall Street Journal, which reported the administration's move ahead of the public announcement, noted that nearly half of Medicare Part D plan enrollees would likely see increases "largely in the $11 to $20 range a month." The subsidy program, established in the wake of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, cut the average Part D premium by more than 25% this year.
Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement that President Donald Trump and his Republican allies "continue to force seniors to pay more while handing tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations."
"Trump and Republicans are making healthcare more expensive for seniors at every turn," said Dach. "In the middle of a GOP-induced affordability crisis, they are eliminating a key program that helps seniors afford their medications, meaning countless seniors will soon pay more just to get the lifesaving prescriptions they need. For older Americans living on fixed incomes, even an extra ten or twenty dollars a month can mean choosing between filling their prescription, paying the electric bill, or buying groceries. Seniors deserve lower prescription drug costs and affordable healthcare."
Around 25 million Americans are enrolled in standalone prescription drug plans through Medicare Part D, which is offered by private, Medicare-approved companies. Another 31 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare Part D via privatized Medicare Advantage plans.
Juliette Cubanski, vice president and director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the nonprofit research group KFF, wrote that standalone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans "may soon seem even less affordable" following the Trump administration's change, "leading to further enrollment growth in Medicare Advantage." (Prior to becoming head of CMS, Oz was a prominent booster of Medicare Advantage.)
Each year, millions of people across the US are forced to forgo or ration prescription medications due to high costs.
Kendall Witmer, rapid response director at the Democratic National Committee, said the Trump administration's decision to terminate the Medicare Part D subsidy program shows that the president and his party "are doing everything they can to make healthcare unaffordable for Americans, especially for seniors."
"Trump and Republicans’ massive healthcare cuts have pushed working families to the brink as they grapple with skyrocketing insurance premiums, even bigger medical bills, and rising prescription drug costs," said Witmer. "Americans are taking on record amounts of medical debt just to make ends meet—all while Trump and his family get even richer and his wealthy donors rake in tax cuts."
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'Their Goal Is to Destroy Medicare': GOP Senators Block Bid to Stop AI Care Denials
“Yesterday, we were reminded who the Republicans are: a group of millionaires working for billionaires who will rip healthcare away from those who need it most," said one campaigner.
Jul 17, 2026
In what critics called a troubling sign of where US healthcare policy is headed, Senate Republicans on Thursday torpedoed an effort by their Democratic colleagues to block a Trump administration pilot program under which private companies will use artificial intelligence to review—and possibly deny—healthcare to patients seeking certain Medicare services.
Senators voted 50-46 along party lines against a Congressional Review Act resolution introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and supported by 20 Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The resolution was aimed at overturning the Trump administration's final rule establishing the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) so-called Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model.
"Yesterday, I voted to block [President Donald] Trump’s plan to let AI decide whether Medicare will approve or deny your medical care. Every Senate Republican supported Trump’s scheme," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Friday on social media. "Doctors should be deciding what care seniors need—not a computer program."
The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor union federation, said on X: "No senior should have to wait weeks to see a doctor because a flawed AI system won’t authorize it. The Trump [administration's] WISeR program is delaying treatment for Medicare patients and putting tech companies’ interests first. Congress must end it."
Alex Jacquez, senior vice president of policy, advocacy, and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, highlighted the "horrendous" WISeR rollout, which, according to KFF, "has created confusion, errors, long wait times, and stress" and has left many patients "ensnared in the same red tape as those with private insurance."
CMS claims WISeR “helps protect American taxpayers by leveraging enhanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, along with human clinical review, to ensure timely and appropriate Medicare payment for select items and services.”
However, critics warn that AI will make it easier and faster to deny or delay care and have raised concerns that AI would likely be used as a cost-cutting tool to fulfill financial incentives.
“Yesterday, we were reminded who the Republicans are: a group of millionaires working for billionaires who will rip healthcare away from those who need it most," Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams on Friday.
"The White House leaned on the Republican senators and they folded like the cheap suits they are," he continued. "Cowards to a person."
Singling out Sen. Josh Hawley, Lawson said the Missouri Republican "pretends he would oppose Medicare delays and denials by algorithm or AI, but when the vote is called dutifully dances to the tune his master calls."
"Their goal is to destroy Medicare, to destroy guaranteed healthcare, to ensure that every facet of the 'healthcare system' serves only one purpose, profit," Lawson said of Republican lawmakers.
Private Medicare Advantage healthcare profiteers have been using AI to deny care for years. Consumers are aware of—and outraged by—the practice.
“I don’t know any senior, Republican or Democrat, who asked President Trump to let AI decide if their doctor-recommended treatment was necessary," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said on Thursday.
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Senate Urged to Reject Trump Plot to Unleash AI for Medicare Service Denials
"The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI," said one campaigner.
Jul 15, 2026
Advocates for seniors on Wednesday urged US senators to vote for a resolution that, if passed, would block a new Trump administration pilot program under which claims by patients seeking certain healthcare services through traditional Medicare would be reviewed by private companies using artificial intelligence to deny care.
Upper chamber lawmakers are set to vote Thursday on a resolution introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and supported by 20 Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to stop the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' so-called Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model.
CMS claims WISeR "helps protect American taxpayers by leveraging enhanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, along with human clinical review, to ensure timely and appropriate Medicare payment for select items and services."
What CMS doesn't mention—and what alarms a growing number of physicians and advocates—about the voluntary model is that AI-assisted reviews could contribute to inappropriate care denials, despite the required human review. Private Medicare Advantage healthcare profiteers have been using AI to deny care for years.
Critics argue that, even if a human must sign off, AI will effectively drive many of the recommendations, making it easier and faster to deny or delay care. They also warn of inevitable financial incentives tied to reducing Medicare spending, raising concerns that AI would likely be used as a cost-cutting tool.
"WISeR is not wise at all. It is a dangerous, profit-motivated experiment that allows private third parties to use artificial intelligence to delay and deny seniors’ medical care," Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson said Wednesday. "Under the WISeR pilot program, which went live in January 2026, reports already show Medicare beneficiaries are waiting 2 to 4 times longer to access certain care."
"This is just one more example of the harm that Republicans’ disastrous healthcare agenda has already waged on American patients," he continued. "Last year, Republicans slashed $1 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act spending to line their cronies’ pockets. Now, they are importing the worst parts of Medicare Advantage—automated care denials—into traditional Medicare."
"The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI," Lawson added.
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Colorado Voters Aren't Foolish: Reading Between the Lines of the Dem Gov Debate
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser stood firm on his answers and invited more collaboration. I believe he will make a fine governor for Colorado—for all of us.
Jun 09, 2026
On Thursday evening last week, I attended the Colorado Democratic gubernatorial debate at the invitation of Colorado’s attorney general, Phil Weiser. Weiser and US Sen. Michael Bennet are facing off in the upcoming June 30th primary.
Colorado’s next governor needs to be aware that not having enough money to retire comfortably is not a moral failing and that we deserve the same protections as those who are more financially set in life. We support AG Weiser to be our next governor in large part due to his fight back, intelligence, and decency. Yet what solidified that support following the debate was knowing what wasn’t said and why it wasn’t said—and knowing Weiser didn’t play those games with those partaking in the debate.
We do not like being played for fools, and Weiser never seems to do that—though he is aware we are not wealthy donors or wealthy at all. Listening closely to what was said and not said is a skill I’ve honed after raising six children and after working in and around political folks in Washington, DC and closer to home. Even as a child, being able to read a room or figure out if I’m in danger has been a necessary survival skill. As a senior struggling with my share of health issues and as primary caregiver for my husband when he needs care, I know that aging in Colorado in Trump’s America requires me to be more vigilant than ever—and we are in danger, friends.
While Weiser and Bennet are not miles apart in their positions on some key policies, and voters might argue the fine points of policy differences, two sections of the debate spoke volumes to me about credibility and being seen as a voter smart enough to see through a ruse.
Phil Weiser seems to want people like me to be part of his political work—his public service—and he believes I am intelligent enough to know when the BS factor is out of control.
Michael Bennet is a fine orator. His years in the Senate have allowed him great practice for that skill. I’ve never found that his diatribes on the Senate floor in DC (as covered by his campaign and sometimes local media outlets) helped me or even slowed down the relentless American-dream-crushing march of the current federal government’s behavior. I’m afraid to lose my Medicare or my Social Security mostly because I don’t want to burden my children or grandchildren. Those programs are federal, not state.
Bennet chastised Weiser for not fighting the first Trump administration enough from his state position even though Bennet has supported many Trump nominees and even some policies. He said he did so because of the existential threats Colorado faces in areas those Trump nominees control and areas in which we need federal funds. Really? So, as Bennet proclaimed, the easiest vote in America is one against Trump, I thought to myself—what the hell exactly does that mean? It tells me that I cannot trust Bennet to do his job right now as the people of this state depend on him to do, and if I cannot trust he will protect this democracy or my earned benefits of Social Security and Medicare—and that he will do everything in his power to oppose blackmailing bullies—I cannot trust him to be Colorado’s governor.
In contrast, Weiser said he would never bow to that sort of Trump-style political gamesmanship with someone threatening our rights and our economic safety as a state. Perhaps that is Weiser’s personal history as the son of Holocaust survivors, and yet, it must also be the stance of those of us who believe in the Constitution of this nation and this state. Cooperating with an administration that devalues my life and lives of anyone in our human family is unacceptable, and it is not leadership. Appeasing a despot who finds joy and power in his cruelty has never worked and never will. Trump must be opposed at every turn.
No, Sen. Bennet, it isn’t so hard. Do all you can from where you are now—fight in your current position for which you are paid by us. If young people are angry about the Dems, it’s because they do not see the fight back or even the direct challenges to almost everything we fought to secure on the federal level. Stopping the forward march of Project 2025 comes before building new ways to confront our shared futures. Where were you, Sen. Bennet? Yelling and smooth orating doesn’t save anything or prove your worthiness to lead on the state level. Our erudite rants make for great sound bites, though.
My second point of recognizing deception was in Michael Bennet’s assertion that he hasn’t even thought about who he’s going to appoint (if he is elected our next governor) to fill the rest of his Senate term. It’s silly to expect anyone to believe that. While he said it would be someone under 50 years old, he wants you and me to believe he really hasn’t thought about it at all. Come on. He went on to say he hasn’t had any conversations at all here in Colorado about his favored appointee. Did you read that carefully? I’m sure the conversations he has had haven’t actually been in Colorado. He hasn’t spent that much time here, I don’t think. Access to him is very tightly controlled, and letters from Coloradans are answered with form responses. His life centers on DC, and his “conversations” about his Senate replacement likely were there with US House reps from Colorado or in New York with Michael Bloomberg (one of his most generous donors).
So, bottom line for me is that Phil Weiser seems to want people like me to be part of his political work—his public service—and he believes I am intelligent enough to know when the BS factor is out of control. I don’t want my governor to appease Trump or anyone else who harms us all in the manner of a mob boss or dictator, and I want to know who Bennet favors appointing to his Senate seat, if it’s vacated. Those things matter as we face the future together.
Phil Weiser stood firm on his answers and invited more collaboration. I believe he will make a fine governor for Colorado—for all of us. And a vote for Phil Weiser doesn’t have any mystery attached. Strong and unwilling to honey up to bullies, clear about policy, and ready to fight back and move forward—that’s our AG Phil Weiser. This time in our history demands that and more from us all, not just the people we elect. When politicians play us for fools, we can all rise to this moment and make sure history records our courage, our decency, and our sacred honor shown to one another.
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After More Private Social Security Data Exposed by Team Trump, Where Will GOP 'Draw the Line'?
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said one watchdog group who called the leak of personal information "a goldmine for identity thieves" and other fraudsters.
May 03, 2026
A newly reported failure of the Trump administration's ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers' Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout.
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration last week, before publishing a story about it on Friday, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise.
According to the Post:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
But a publicly accessible database used to populate the directory contains some of the providers’ Social Security numbers, linked to their names and other identifying information. For at least several weeks, CMS made the database available for public use as part of its data transparency efforts.
While the reporting noted that the files were "not immediately visible to users who [visited] the provider directory," lawmakers and experts said the compromised information would be a treasure trove for fraudsters.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes."
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it "yet another mess-up by the Team Trump" and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation's most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation's social programs.
The compromised database, said the group, "is a goldmine for identity thieves, scammers, and foreign governments. And it is undermining the very foundation of our Social Security system."
"This is a failure by this administration," said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in response to the reporting. "Exposing Social Security numbers, whether patients or providers, is unacceptable."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Medicare program, put the onus on his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes,” Neal told the Post in a statement. “Do House Republicans need to see their own data exposed before they do right by their constituents and act?”
In March, as Common Dreams reported at the time, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration accusing a former staffer with Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run for a time by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.
Since the outset of Trump's second term, DOGE's meddling with Social Security and Trump's undermining of the program have been the source of deep anger and concerns among the program's defenders.
In a social media post on Saturday citing the whistleblower allegations from March, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said, "For more than a year, 'DOGE' has been combing through the American people's records. They want to use your data to overturn elections and profit in the private sector. Enough! This administration must be held accountable for this massive data breach!
On Friday, responding to the Post's new reporting about the compromised database of physicians' private information, Larsen condemned Republicans for their ongoing and pervasive failures in the face of Trump's malfeasance and incompetence.
DOGE, said Larsen, "has been in your data for more than a year. We just learned that physicians' Social Security numbers were publicly exposed in an online portal launched by ‘DOGE’ officials."
"If this isn't enough for Republicans to act," he asked, "where will they draw the line?"
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