FactChecking Trump’s Medicare Op-Ed

In an op-ed for USA Today, President Donald Trump made a series of false and misleading statements about Medicare and health insurance in general:

• The president claimed that the Medicare for All Act, one of several Democratic-sponsored health insurance bills, would “cost an astonishing $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years.” That’s an estimate of the cost to the federal government, but that ignores the offsetting savings in health care costs for individuals, employers and state governments. 
• Trump wrote that the Medicare for All Act would “take away benefits” from seniors. The plan calls for adding new benefits to Medicare coverage, including dental, vision and hearing aids, and eliminating deductibles. 
• The president overstates the consensus when he says “we have seen Democrats across the country uniting around” the Medicare for All Act. There are competing bills that would expand insurance coverage by increasing access to Medicare or Medicaid.
• Trump claimed he kept his campaign promise to “protect coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions.” But the administration supports a lawsuit that it says would lead to the elimination of the Affordable Care Act’s preexisting condition protections.
• The president also said he has kept his promise to “create new health insurance options” to lower premiums, “and we are now seeing health insurance premiums coming down.” But not all premiums are “coming down.”

Trump wrote his op-ed under the headline “Democrats ‘Medicare for All’ plan will demolish promises to seniors.” And, as the headline implies, the piece is largely about the Medicare for All Act, introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sept. 13, 2017.

But it also makes sweeping, unsupported attacks on the “radical socialist plans of the Democrats.” The president falsely claims, for example, that Democrats support “open borders” and says, without evidence, that the Democrats “will seek to slash budgets” for Medicare and Social Security.  

The Cost of Medicare for All

Trump starts his op-ed with the claim that Medicare for All would “cost an astonishing $32.6 trillion during its first. But that doesn’t take into account the offsetting savings in health care costs for others.