Trump Is Bad For Our Health

One week in and Trump’s new administration is panning out to be a full frontal assault on our health. Key appointments, along with a slew of executive orders to fulfill outlandish campaign promises demonstrate that Trump and his emerging team have no mercy when it comes to protecting the health and well-being of American citizens. On three key fronts, our health is at grave risk. And, on each of these, we must take action.

1. Access to healthcare

Trump’s tapping Georgian Representative Tom Price as Health and Human Services Secretary gives us a window into just how bad the new administration will be for our health, especially if you happen to be a woman. Price believes that abortion should made illegal, even in extreme cases such as incest, rape or endangerment to the mother’s life. In fact, he even went so far as to co-sponsor a bill that would have granted fetuses the right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

In addition to being a misogynist (much like his soon-to-be boss), Price is a committed foe to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Doing away with it, as Price, Trump and their Republican colleagues would have it, will represent a giant step backwards on the health and well-being of our nation, especially for those citizens who are most vulnerable. Likely 30 million Americans will lose their access to healthcare, according to the Urban Institute.

In a clear sign that he means business when it comes to undermining our right to healthcare, Trump signed executive order on Day 1 that effectively directs federal agencies to ignore the law. As evidenced by leaked concerns aired by lawmakers in a GOP retreat the following Friday, Republicans are discovering that criticizing the ACA is much easier than coming up with a viable replacement. As Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) summed it up, “We’d better be sure that we’re prepared to live with the market we’ve created [with repeal]. That’s going to be Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we’ll be judged in the election less than two years away.”

2. Protecting the health of the fast food industry at the expense of ours

Second, our Commander in Chief ‘s pick of fast food executive Andrew F. Puzder as Labor Secretary will serve the health of the fast food industry at the expense of ours. Already, Americans consume 75 McDonald’s hamburgers every second; and already, over 50 million Americans patronize fast-food restaurants on a daily basis, including over a third of our children. The link between fast food and poor health is indisputable. In fact, a Canadian study demonstrated that a single fast food-food meal wreaks havoc on our arteries. With Puzder at the helm of labor policy, the negative health impact of the fast food industry will likely get even worse, not better.

Furthermore, despite the fact that Trump ran on the platform of bringing back jobs and speaking on behalf of forgotten workers, he could not have chosen a more anti-worker leader than Puzder. Pudzer's opposition to minimum wage and resistance to overtime pay will put added pressure on millions of hard working Americans to make the choice of heavily subsidized fast food over more expensive but more nutritious diets that prevent lifestyle-related conditions and diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

3. Environment

What’s bad for the environment is bad for our health. It goes without saying that Trump’s choice of anti-environment, anti-science Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to head up the EPA is blow for the environment and our health. At the top of Pruitt’s “To Do” list is to scrap Obama’s Clean Power Plan, designed to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants, the top contributor of carbon pollution in the U.S.

While the discussion of coal-fired power plants has primarily centered on environmental impact, we cannot ignore their significant negative effects on our health. Over the past three decades, rates of asthma have skyrocketed, with a disproportionate impact on children of color. Between 2001 and 2009, the rates of asthma in black children increased by a shocking 50 percent. Studies show that air pollution, largely fed by these coal-fired power plants, is a leading contributor.

In addition to being hell bent on overturning the Clean Power Plan, Pruitt (with Trump’s blessing) is determined to decimate the entire agency that he’s been asked to lead. Instead of protecting the environment, his leadership threatens to plunder it. Trump and team are well on their way to rolling back decades of hard-earned regulations to protect our environment, as evidenced by Trump's freezing of all EPA contracts and grants. The heartbreaking story of Flint, Michigan reminds us that American citizens rely on environmental regulators, like the EPA, to protect both the environment and to protect our health. Both are at grave risk as we will soon be reliant upon environmental antagonists to be the steward of our natural habitat.

Health is wealth

Whatever “savings” that might be generated by undoing the ACA or by rolling back regulations on industries like fossil fuels or by pushing back on minimum wage will undoubtedly show up later in the form of increased healthcare costs, lost productivity and reduced quality of life. Health is wealth, and without it, we stand to lose everything. As executive orders and cabinet confirmations continue, we must make our voices heard by protesting Trump’s toxic, health-sabotaging choices. The health of our nation depends on it.