NOTE: The English translation of our twenty-second Spanish-language Public Health Policy Reviews weekly video newsletter:
Hello and welcome to the twenty-second week of our Public Health Policy Reviews Spanish language digital newsletter.
We ended the week of July 7th through July 11th by highlighting the influence of the private health insurance lobby over the successful passage of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” or the OBBB for short, during the furious legislative debate over the bill in Congress during the first week of July.
The OBBB legislation, signed on Independence Day by President Trump, narrowly cleared the Senate and the House of Representatives with few Republican (GOP) defections, benefits the wealthy and hurts lower-income Americans.
The bill contains the most significant cut to Medicaid and food assistance programs for the poor in US history.
During a July 4th signing ceremony of the OBBB at the White House, Mr. Trump said, “We made promises, and it’s really promises made, promises kept.”
There is no national media focus on the fact that the health insurance industry and companies like UnitedHealthcare contributed over $24.6 million in campaign donations to congressional candidates from both major political parties during the 2023-2024 election cycle.
Health insurance political action committees (PACs) spent $13,825,782 on Republicans and $10,698,078 on Democrats last year.
The question is, “What have health insurance companies received for their money?”
In February 2022, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a federal lawsuit to challenge a $8 billion all-cash deal corporate merger between UnitedHealth and Change Healthcare, citing antitrust concerns.
UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, later convinced the federal courts that there is adequate separation between the payment business of Change Healthcare and UnitedHealth Group’s health plan business.
On Monday, July 14th, our Substack essay focused on Coconino County Health and Human Services officials confirming that an Arizona resident died of pneumonic plague, becoming the first person in almost 20 years to succumb to the disease in the area.
According to local officials, the victim, who has not been identified, was a resident of Coconino County, where the city of Flagstaff, Arizona, is located.
While the current federal Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, claims that the risk to the public from pneumonic plague is low, the resurgence of this infectious disease signals a concerning pattern.
The return of this outbreak reflects the broader public health agendas of President Trump’s “MAGA” movement.
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