Trump is making Americans lives shorter
The last post out of three about Trump making American lives dirtier, poorer, and shorter.
Spoiler: Life expectrancy in the US is already shorter than in many countries with similar levels of income. One example is Canada where life expectancy is 82.6 years compared to 79.3 years in USA. The Mump administraion’s attacks on Social security, and Medicaid will make Americans lives shorter. The stupid attacks on key agencies like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes for Health (NIH), and the Drug and Food Administration (DFA) endanger peoples’ lives. Making an anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist minister in charge of the US health system is reckless and shows how little Trump knows or cares about peoples lives.
US citizens’ lives will be shorter because Trump’s policies willl reduce healthcare access and affordability, increase air pollution and weather fatalities, increase deaths by freezing resarch at NIH/CDC and cutting pandemic preparedness programs, and increase food insecurity by various DOGE cuts.
Appointing an anti vaxxer will kill even more Americans.
Already during his first term, Trump showed that he is dangerous for Americans. His failure in protecting Americans during his first term caused American life expectancy to fall further behind other countries with similar income per capita.
In the final year of Donald Trump’s presidency, more than 450,000 Americans died from COVID-19, and life expectancy fell by 1.13 years, the biggest decrease since World War II. Many of the deaths were avoidable; COVID-19 mortality in the U.S. was 40 percent higher than the average of the other wealthy nations in the Group of Seven (G7).
Did he learn a lesson? Of course not. He is Donald Trump. And Donald Trump never admits a failure even though he commits them daily. So, instead of taking measures to make sure to protect Americans equally well as other nationals are protected, he appoints an anti vaxxer as a Secretary of Health and Human Services. That is nothing but a disservice to Americans. Since RFK Jr. became minister, the reported cases of measles have increased. Almost 500 cases of measles are reported in the first quarter of 2025 compared to 285 last year. And still, under Trump, the CDC has begun to release statements that tone down the protective effects of vaccination against measles and other epidemic diseases
Like Trump, RFK Jr hates people who not only know more than him but also criticise him when he says stupid things. Therefore, the FDA top vaccination official Dr. Peter Marks was fired because he dismissed RFK Jr’s lies.
"It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies," Dr. Peter Marks wrote in his letter of resignation, which was obtained by NPR.
More people are also going to die of HIV/AIDS as RFK Jr plans to close down the federal government’s Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy(OIDP). OIDP also runs the US National Vaccine Program. This means that more people will die from other diseases too, not only HIV/AIDS.
It is still not clear how hard Trump’s attacks on the national health system will be. But cutting staff with a quarter of the existing workforce will have consequences for Americans’ health. More people will die because of Trump, RFK Jr. and DOGE.
Attacking Social Security will impoverish and kill elderly Americans.
We don’t know yet how Social Security eventually will be affected since Trump sometimes contradicts Musk and sometimes amplifies his lies. But many republicans have repeated Musk’s debunked claims of millions going to dead people and that it is Ponzi scheme rife with fraud, waste, and abuse.
In fact, Musk’s and Trump’s claims have been disproven by the General Accounting Office, that routinely audits beneficiaries to detect fraud. It has found no evidence money going to dead people or fraud.
Instead, it is a very efficient program that has been instrumental in decreasing elderly Americans’ poverty.
Source: David Rasmussen, The Conversation.
The DOGE attacks on Social Security staff may already have caused deaths. People applying for benefits or trying to change banks have been asked to verify their identity either online or in person. It is evil to ask that of people who may be disabled and are having difficulties to manage the Internet and/or travel to an office to verify their identity. Since so many staff have been fired, many offices are closed. It is highly likely that a lot of elderly Americans won’t recieve their checks in time.
Cutting Medicaid will kill children, disabled, elderly, mentally ill, and homeless Americans.
We all know that Trump lies. Repeatedly. Contrary to what he had said about not cutting Medicaid, on Tuesday February 25 the republicans voted through a budget resolution calling for at least $880 billion in cuts in federal spending over the next ten years from programs. Cuts allocated to Medicaid are the largest source of cuts in the package.
Medicaid is a public health insurance program that provides health coverage to about one in five people living in the U.S. Low-income adults, working families, children, vulnerable seniors, and people with disabilities rely heavily on Medicaid for their health expenditures. About 40% of U.S. children rely on Medicaid, as well as more than 60% of nursing home residents and some 40% of people 18-64 years old with disabilities.
These are helped by Medicaid. Trump does not care.
Source: Partners in Health
And of course, Trump wants to slash Medicaid because Obama expanded its coverage to more poor people with his Affordable Care Act. And, since ACA was Obama’s policy, Trump hates it and tried to destroy it during his first term. He failed but will try again.
What about Medicare? Medicare is a federal insurance program for people above 65 and younger people with disabilities and also covering people renal problems and ALS. Trump wants to expand Medicare, which is run by private insurance companies. It is still not very clear how Trump will change this. Will he allow Medicare to expand at the expense of Medicaid? That would mean that more of peoples’ health care expenses would be scrutinised by insurance companies. It is still uncler how Trump will change this and how that will affect Americans. Paul Krugman has a few posts on Medicare and Medicaid if you want qualified guesses. I have no clue.
More Americans will die of bad weather because of Trump.
Trump and Musk have fired almost 600 people working at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Those people used to work at National Weather Services, different kinds of forecast services and Tsunami warning centers. Also, people working with research on climate changes have been fired because Trump is a climate denier.
The effects of less staff and decreased funding will turn up in less accurate weather forecasts causing more deaths and destructions after hurricanes, storms, floods, heat waves and more. More people will die, more homes, buildings, and infrastructure will be destroyed.