I’m an Economist: How a Trump Win Could Affect Your Medical Debt
Medical debt is a major financial burden for many Americans — so much so that they are forced to cut spending on essentials like food and clothing just to pay it down. A report published earlier this year by the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker revealed that 20 million U.S. adults owed some kind of medical debt as of 2021. Their combined debt was at least $220 billion, and roughly 3 million Americans owed more than $10,000.
The reasons for all this debt are many and varied, though most are tied to a combination of high healthcare costs and inadequate health insurance. Making healthcare more affordable and accessible is a big talking point during election years, and 2024 is no exception. Among those who have addressed the topic is ex-President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term this year.
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Here’s how the ex-president’s election win could affect medical debt.
Trump’s Actions Regarding Healthcare
Much of Trump’s current talk centers on his vow not to touch Medicare or Social Security benefits. But during his first run for office in 2016, he took it a step further by pushing for wider healthcare coverage, Forbes recently reported.
“Everybody’s got to be covered,” Trump said at the time. “This is an un-Republican thing for me to say, but … I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not.”
In a May 2019 White House press release, the Trump administration outlined several proposals to reduce healthcare costs and help people avoid medical debt. Among the highlights:
Patients receiving emergency care should not be forced to shoulder extra costs billed by a care provider but not covered by their insurer.
Patients receiving scheduled care should have information about whether providers are in or out of their network and what costs they may face.
Patients should not receive surprise bills from out-of-network providers they did not choose.
Federal healthcare expenditures should not increase.
As president, Trump did take some steps to lower healthcare costs. He approved rules allowing the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and other countries, NPR reported. The problem was that not many countries were willing to sell their drugs here.
More successful was another law under Trump, called the “No Surprises Act,” that aimed to protect patients from exorbitant emergency room bills. It was later implemented by President Joe Biden.
In addition, Trump signed the “Right to Try Act,” which was designed to make it easier for patients with terminal diseases to access drugs or treatments not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But as KFF Health News noted, it is “not clear” how many patients were able to get treatment using the law because the FDA has traditionally granted requests for “compassionate use” of not-yet-approved drugs, anyway.
“The stumbling block, which the law does not address, is getting drug companies to release doses of medicines that are still being tested and may be in short supply,” KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner wrote earlier this year.
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How a Trump Win Could Affect Your Medical Debt
Should Trump win a second term this year in his matchup with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, some economists and other healthcare experts harbor doubts about his ability to lower medical debt. That’s mainly because his opposition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, could lead to more uninsured Americans.
According to a recent analysis conducted by Capital & Main and Thomas Data Consulting, during the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency, the U.S. saw an increase of 2.3 million uninsured people. The primary reason was Trump’s “repeated undermining” of the ACA, which “made it harder for Americans to get health insurance,” according to Jeremy Lindenfeld, who wrote the Capital & Main report.
“Trump cut the enrollment period in half, canceled outreach programs, slashed the ACA’s $100 million advertising budget by 90%, and removed the penalty for not having insurance,” Lindenfeld said in comments shared with GOBankingRates.
A month before Trump eliminated the penalty, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that doing so would raise premiums and result in millions more uninsured people, Capital & Main reported. ACA marketplace open enrollment fell every year from 2016 to 2020. In contrast, during President Joe Biden’s first two years in office, there was an increase of 3.3 million people with insurance.
David Kass, a clinical professor of finance at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business, shared similar concerns during a recent conversation with GBR. He raised the prospect that health insurance could become more costly should Trump win re-election. That in turn could lead to a rise in medical debt.
“During his first term, President Donald Trump attempted to repeal the ACA, an effort that is likely to be repeated during a second term,” said Kass, who previously held senior positions in the federal government. “If the ACA is repealed or weakened, the likely result would be higher insurance premiums for the middle class. It could also lead to reduced protections for those with pre-existing conditions.”
And as Lindenfeld told GBR, a rise in uninsured Americans will only exacerbate a medical debt problem that is already bad enough.
“People with health insurance are less likely to be burdened by medical debt, but it isn’t a silver bullet,” he said. “People with insurance still do go into medical debt; it’s just not as bad as it is for folks without insurance.”
Editor’s note on election coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.
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