Jan. 6, 2026

The Cruelty Is the Point: How Trump's Healthcare Cuts Reveal His True Priorities

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Trump’s Cuts Are About to Make Health Care Even Worse

This is what America has come to:

A disabled widow, Melinda Price, 43, set out with her walker at 4 a.m. in hopes of getting health care not covered by her Medicaid insurance. A cancer survivor, she had lost her car to medical debt, and she could not afford an Uber. So Price hobbled for nearly two hours through darkened streets to a high school in Columbus, Ohio, where medics at a health fair promised free help.

Yet American health care may be headed for a future still more bleak:

President Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and other health programs will make things worse, especially for marginalized people like Price. One study projects that 51,000 Americans will die annually as a result of these cuts.

New York Times January 3, 2026

I know we’ve covered this before. But this story needs to be told over and over again, in every way possible, until it penetrates the consciousness of every American who still thinks this man gives a damn about anyone but himself. Because each retelling reveals another layer of his indifference. Because somewhere out there, someone needs to hear this in just the right way to finally understand that Trump’s cruelty isn’t a bug—it’s the entire operating system. Donald Trump does not care if you live or die, unless you’re wealthy enough to be useful to him. And every day, real Americans pay the price.

At 4 a.m. on a cold morning in Columbus, Ohio, Melinda Price set out with her walker toward a health fair at a local high school. The 43-year-old disabled widow and cancer survivor had lost her car to medical debt. She couldn’t afford an Uber. So she walked—or rather, hobbled—through darkened streets for nearly two hours, seeking medical care that her Medicaid insurance wouldn’t cover.

This is America in 2026. And it’s about to get much worse.

Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” will slash $900 billion from federal Medicaid spending over a decade. One study projects that 51,000 Americans will die annually as a result. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 7.5 million Americans will lose Medicaid coverage by 2034, with total uninsured rising by 17 million. This would be “the biggest roll back of health insurance coverage ever due to federal policy changes.”

Fifty-one thousand people. Every year. Dead. Because Donald Trump decided that tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans were more important than keeping poor people alive.

Trump claims these cuts target “able-bodied adults.” That’s a lie. Children’s hospitals collectively stand to lose billions in revenue. The CEO of Phoenix Children’s hospital said bluntly that the cuts “cannot be achieved without directly affecting coverage and care for Arizona’s kids, especially the most vulnerable among them.”

Medicaid is the fourth largest federal funding stream for schools, paying for nurses, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and psychological services for children with disabilities. About a third of the budget cuts come from imposing work requirements, forcing parents to choose: work multiple jobs to meet arbitrary requirements, or lose healthcare for their kids.

More than 300 rural hospitals are at “immediate risk” of closure. The bill includes $50 billion in relief funding over five years to offset roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts. That’s $10 billion a year to offset $100 billion in annual cuts. It’s like setting someone’s house on fire and handing them a garden hose.

Hospital administrators in rural Kansas are already planning to cut services. One CEO warned: “When we think about the cuts to Medicaid, it isn’t simply about cutting services to the poor. It’s threatening services to everyone.” OB-GYN units, chemotherapy services, emergency departments—all at risk in communities that can’t afford to lose them.

The National Institutes of Health has seen about $2.3 billion in unspent funds across nearly 2,500 grants frozen or terminated. The National Science Foundation had over 1,300 grants with about $700 million cut. Trump proposed slashing nearly 40% from NIH’s budget. Early-career grant awards fell in 2025 to their lowest point since 2016.

One researcher warned: “If we stop investing in this research now, 10 years from now or 20 years from now, we won’t have this pipeline of amazing new drugs to help people, to treat cancer, to treat Alzheimer’s, to treat diabetes, to treat heart disease.”

But Trump doesn’t care about 10 or 20 years from now. He’ll be long gone, probably golfing at Mar-a-Lago while Americans die from diseases we could have cured.

Here’s what makes this obscene: the Medicaid cuts only partially offset Trump’s priorities, which will add more than $3 trillion to the deficit. Those priorities? A massive expansion of immigration enforcement and tax cuts that largely benefit the wealthiest Americans.

Trump is literally taking healthcare from dying children and disabled widows like Melinda Price to give tax breaks to billionaires. He’s killing medical research that could save millions to fund his immigration obsession. He’s closing rural hospitals so his Mar-a-Lago buddies can buy another yacht.

These aren’t tough but necessary fiscal decisions. This is deliberate, calculated cruelty designed to benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the most vulnerable.

Trump doesn’t care about the disabled widow walking two hours at 4 a.m. for healthcare. He doesn’t care about children losing access to therapists. He doesn’t care about rural communities watching their only hospital close. He doesn’t care about researchers working on tomorrow’s cancer treatments.

He cares about himself. His image. His power. His wealthy donors.

The cruelty is the point. The suffering is the goal.

Melinda Price walked through the dark for two hours seeking healthcare. The least we can do is fight like hell to make sure no one else has to.

FTS