You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Is Trump Slashing Healthcare Subsidies for the Poor to Decimate Obamacare & Cut Taxes for the Rich?

Listen
Media Options
Listen

As President Trump moves to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in an executive order, and the White House announces it will stop paying billions of dollars in federal subsidies to insurance companies to help cover low-income people’s healthcare plans, we get response from Congressmember Luis Gutiérrez, who says Trump’s dismantling of the ACA is an attempt to balance the budget. “It’s no coincidence that their next move is to give a tax break to the wealthiest in this nation,” Gutiérrez notes.

Related Story

StoryDec 23, 2021Tea Party Redux: How the Koch Network Funds and Fuels the Anti-Lockdown Movement
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, President Trump, in a late-night move, announcement, the White House announced that it will stop paying billions of dollars in federal subsidies to insurance companies to subsidize low-income people’s healthcare plans. Can you respond to this move?

REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ: Yeah, the poor, that finally had access to healthcare, the working poor that had access to healthcare, mothers, most mothers with—you know, single mothers with children, the elderly, those that we finally were able to bring inside the realm of safety of healthcare, that’s who he wants to take away healthcare from. And then he wants to give—wants to allow these minimalist insurance policies so employers can give that to their employees, so that people will once again—I hate to, but it’s true—so that people, again, because they don’t have appropriate healthcare, will again die in this, the richest, most powerful nation in the world. The president of the United States wants to do this, clearly. Here’s what they’re going to do the money, Amy. It’s no coincidence that their next move is to give a tax break to the wealthiest in this nation. And they need to balance their budget in order to give that tax break to the wealthiest by taking it from the poorest in the nation. I think it’s just so shameful.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, we thank you so much for being with us, Democrat of Illinois—

REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: —co-chair of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, the world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. Robert Jay Lifton on President Trump and the apocalyptic twins of nuclear war and climate change. Stay with us.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Next story from this daily show

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on Duty to Warn: Trump’s “Relation to Reality” is Dangerous to Us All

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top