Trump on Thursday released a health care affordability blueprint that he is pressuring Congress to enact, aimed at lowering drug prices and insurance premiums.
The framework, which Trump dubbed "The Great Healthcare Plan," includes many proposals that Trump or Congress have pushed in recent years, but it does not call for an extension of the Affordable Care Act's enhanced subsidies, which expired at the end of last year.
Trump's blueprint left much for Congress to sort out, but doesn't appear to address the spike in out-of-pocket costs that is hitting people who used to rely on those subsidies. That could make it an uphill battle for Republicans to make health care a winning issue.
Vulnerable Republicans have been trying to find a way to get the rest of their caucus on board with an extension, recognizing the massive political liability of letting the subsidies expire.
But bipartisan Senate negotiations appear to be going nowhere, and several lawmakers expressed skepticism that the group could overcome the same thorny issues that have loomed over the subsidy extension for months.
On Friday morning, Trump followed up his health plan with a roundtable to tout the GOP's Rural Health Transformation Program, which recently began distributing its first round of grants to states.
The $50 billion fund was added as a last-minute sweetener to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and as a backstop for states that are set to lose nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid funding over the next decade because of the legislation's cuts.
The money was key to bringing some reluctant Republicans from rural states — including Alaska — on board to support the bill.
Alaska was awarded $272 million, more than any state besides Texas. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R), who is in a competitive reelection race, appeared with Trump at the White House Friday to tout the funding and praise Trump's health plan.
"These funds will go to empowering rural hospitals, strengthening their workforce, modernizing facilities and technology, and ensuring that rural Americans get world-class health care in their own community, right smack in their own community, like they've never had it before," Trump said.
He also referenced the frequent Democratic attacks on Republicans for supporting wealthy Americans and corporations at the expense of rural areas, which were a key part of the coalition that helped Trump get elected.
"For those that were trying to make a case that we weren't taking care of the rural community, I'm all about the rural community. We won the rural communities by numbers that nobody has ever won them before, and we're taking care of those great people," Trump said.
Programming note: Health Care is taking a break Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We'll be back in your inboxes on Tuesday.
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