Letters

During his two confirmation hearings, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s uninformed nominee to become the secretary of health and human services, struggled to answer basic questions relating to the job he was nominated to fill. Forcing myself to watch his display of ignorance and shallowness across a range of important health care issues, the fear of looming disaster mounted with every Kennedy utterance.

No secretary of health and human services nominee could possibly know everything there is to know about the job — but is it too much to expect a grasp beyond the rudimentary, a bar Kennedy struggled to reach?

Among other things, it was mind-boggling to watch Kennedy fail to adequately describe two government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, responsible for providing coverage for about 150 million people, and which cost over $1.5 trillion annually. At one point, Kennedy was coached through the components of Medicare; at other times, he confused Medicare with Medicaid, or vice-versa.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, 46 million Americans were uninsured. By 2023, The ACA, with its Medicaid expansion and subsidies for private market insurance premiums, lowered the number of uninsured to 25 million Americans.

Right now, while congressional Republicans acquiesce in the extreme, Trump and Elon Musk are using executive orders to implement the ultra-conservative Project 2025, which calls for slashing the funding for Medicaid and serious curtailment of Medicare.

For Medicaid, Project 2025 calls for onerous eligibility requirements, lifetime caps on benefits and unworkable work requirements. If enacted, it means the severe diminishment of Medicaid-dependent safety net hospitals and the shrinking of nursing home services, which rely heavily on Medicaid.

For Medicare, it means essentially the near termination of Medicare Parts A and B, while making the more expensive Medicare Part C (the privatized Medicare Advantage program) the default position for seniors. (Note: Humana Medicare Part C is being denied in health care systems across the country. I saw a note posted at the entrance of a Northwell clinic about not accepting Humana Part C.)

Through their Direct and Indirect Medical Education programs, Medicare and Medicaid play a significant role in training the country’s future doctors. You should be nervous about the sustainability of those programs, many of which reside in safety net hospitals.

Kennedy’s ignorance and congressional acquiescence to Donald Trump and Elon Musk will mean disaster for our health care programs, and end 15 years of steadily improving coverage for millions of patients.

Mike Anthony

Westhampton

Anthony is a former chair of the Southampton Democratic Committee, and is a retired hospital administrator — Ed.