(Washington) Donald Trump presented Thursday a plan to reduce the cost of health care, a crucial subject in the campaign for the mid-term legislative elections and a political weak point for the American president.
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“Our plan puts you first and puts more money in your pockets,” the 79-year-old Republican promised in a video address published on X.
However, he will need to win the support of Congress, where his party has a slim majority and where the Democratic opposition will wage a fierce battle.
Donald Trump assured that his project, which so far remains quite vague, will make it possible to lower the prices of medicines, which are particularly high in the United States compared to other developed countries.
The president, hostile like many Republicans to the very idea of a public health insurance system, also wants to redirect funds that have until now subsidized private insurers and pay them directly to households, ensuring that this system will ultimately be more advantageous.
The cost of health is an important subject in the campaign for the legislative elections in the fall, the “midterms”, which renew a third of the seats in the Senate and all the seats in the House of Representatives.
According to an AP/Norc poll, 52% of Americans believe that Donald Trump’s policies have had a negative impact on their health care spending so far.
Recent local elections have also shown that the cost of living in general and the cost of health in particular are promising topics for Democratic candidates.
Donald Trump’s announcement comes at a time when Democrats and Republicans are already fighting over subsidies for “Obamacare”, a public health insurance program adopted when the eponymous Democratic president was in power, intended in particular for low-income households.
Since these subsidies expired on December 31, millions of Americans have seen their health insurance costs skyrocket.
According to federal data, nearly 1.5 million of them have decided not to renew their coverage through “Obamacare” for 2026, leaving some without insurance.
The United States, which lacks universal public health insurance, spends more on its health care system than other developed countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, but ranks lower on many indicators.
According to the latest OECD figures, the world’s leading power spends more than 17% of its gross domestic product on health, compared to an average of around 9% for other developed countries.
Life expectancy is 78.4 years, 2.7 years less than the OECD average.
