Last week, my wife and I returned from a week-long vacation to a mountain of mail. Unsurprisingly, most of it was appeals for money from various nonprofit organizations seeking funds for services that were cut by the current administration or funds needed to file lawsuits to protect the environment from the current administration’s deregulation or funds for lawsuits to stop the current administration’s efforts to limit voting rights and access.
Among this stack of nonprofit correspondence were two first-class envelopes addressed to each of us from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services labelled “Official Government Information.” Inside, each of us received a letter from the President of the United States with the greeting “Dear Medicare enrollee.” President Trump opened the letter by stating that Congress “provided two billion dollars to make improvements in traditional Medicare” and he believed that the best way to make improvements to the traditional Medicare program was “to put healthcare dollars where they belong- directly in the hands of the American people.”
Because of the President’s conviction that “Healthcare Dollars should benefit Patients, not Insurance Companies or Government Bureaucrats,” he deposited two “One-Time Payments” of $90 in our joint checking account, enabling us to address our healthcare needs as we see fit.
The letter went on to note that he was the “First President in History to bring down prescription drug prices,” that he “saved more than one billion dollars on much-needed medications, ” and secured “an unprecedented 50 Billion Dollar investment to transform Rural Healthcare… all the while rooting out the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse across our Healthcare System.”
The letter concluded with his pledge to “never stop fighting to put the American People FIRST, restore Affordability, protect (our) hard-earned money, and lower the Cost of Healthcare.”
I found the president’s letter problematic and misleading, and not just because of his overuse of capitalizations.
Because the letter was addressed “Dear Medicare enrollee,” I assumed all Medicare recipients received $90. But the reality is that the 20.8 million individuals who received this help constitute only one-third of all Medicare enrollees. Roughly 35 million Medicare Advantage enrollees who pay lower premiums and receive less coverage did not receive any money to help cover their medical expenses. Nor did roughly 4 million low-income/disabled individuals who receive premium assistance via Medicaid. The bottom line is that those who can afford to pay the highest Medicare premiums are getting help while those who struggle to pay are not.
The president’s letter also omitted several recent actions that will result in higher medical costs. He failed to disclose that months ago he issued an executive order raising tariffs on generic drugs in 2028, an action that will adversely affect the cost of 90% of the drugs purchased in the country. Nor did he mention that the One Big Beautiful Budget Bill he championed will cut $536 billion from Medicare over nine years with $45 billion of those cuts going into effect in 2026. Nor he note that the “50 billion Dollar investment to transform Rural Healthcare” does not begin to offset the $137 billion in cuts to Medicaid in rural areas that are included in the One Big Beautiful Budget Bill. Nor did he tell readers that the fund he used to issue the $90 checks was under the control of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is, according to the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, responsible for the disbursement of the funds that were the source of the $90 payments. The president also failed to mention that the first-class letters he sent to 20.8 million voters cost roughly $13 million to send, which seems to fly in the face of his pledge to root out wasteful spending. By my reckoning, had he sent the letters using the nonprofit rate he could have saved nearly $7 million. But then, had he done so, the letters might have arrived after Nov. 3.
Finally, the president’s letter failed to mention that the United States is the only major high-income, developed nation without a universal healthcare system. It also failed to mention that according to recent polling by KFF, Pew, and Gallup, 62-66% of the voters in the country want such a system.
As one of the 20.8 million Americans enrolled in Original Medicare Part B who received $90 “to improve the traditional Medicare program,” I plan to do so by donating to the campaigns of those running for office in the House and Senate who seek universal health care. I find Medicare to be effective and efficient. Why shouldn’t every citizen in our country have comparable coverage?
Wayne Gersen is a retired public school administrator. He lives in Etna.