How to Kill a Healthcare System in One Big, Dumb Bill
💔 Seventeen million people losing health insurance
🩺 Doctors leaving USA
🛂 New foreign doctors blocked due to visa issues
🔬 Science Throttled - huge cuts to medical research
🎓 Student loans to train new doctors capped at $50,00 a year.
🌾 Three hundred rural hospitals to close
Let’s not sugarcoat it.
The United States is gutting its own medical system with a meat cleaver, and it’s not an accident. It’s policy.
Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” might go down as the most catastrophic healthcare sabotage in modern history. It’s not just a budget cut. It’s a collapse, engineered in broad daylight. We’re talking about 17 million people losing coverage. We’re talking about rural hospitals closing by the hundreds. We’re talking about a mass exodus of doctors, nurses, and medical researchers. And we’re talking about a government that doesn’t care.
They planned this.
And it’s already working.
The Exodus Has Started
Doctors are leaving. American-trained. Foreign-trained. It doesn’t matter. They’re done. Burned out. Exhausted. Done begging insurance companies to do the bare minimum. Done watching patients die waiting for approvals.
They’re going to Canada.
Literally. Since the inauguration, there’s been a 750% increase in American doctors creating accounts to work in Canada. Manitoba is actively recruiting in Florida and the Dakotas. Why? “Zero political interference in the doctor-patient relationship.” That’s what they’re offering. And American doctors are listening.
But here’s the kicker.
We don’t have enough doctors to lose.
The U.S. already relies on foreign-trained physicians to keep the system from falling apart. Forty percent of internal medicine residents. Fifty-two percent of geriatric doctors. These are the people treating diabetes, heart disease, and aging boomers. You know, the basic stuff that keeps people alive.
So what’s Trump doing?
Slapping travel bans on countries like Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran, and Sudan. Blocking visas. Denying entry to highly qualified physicians who want to treat American patients. Thousands of medical residents couldn’t even start their jobs this July. They’re ready to work. The U.S. just won’t let them in.
We’re creating holes in our hospitals.
Nobody is coming to fill them.
Research? What Research?
You think we’re funding medical innovation? Think again.
Trump’s budget cuts wiped out more than $10 billion in NIH funding. Projects got canceled mid-research. Labs were told to pack it up and go home. Clinical trials halted. Promising therapies thrown in the trash.
He even killed the MOSAIC program, which helped underrepresented scientists start their labs and find cures for diseases like diabetes. One grantee was studying genes that could help people who don’t respond to existing meds. Her funding? Gone. And now, that grant might actually hurt her career because it’s been labeled as a “DEI initiative.”
Let me repeat: We’re punishing scientists for doing lifesaving work. We’re branding researchers as politically toxic.
You cannot invent the future like this.
You can only lose it.
And we are.
A March survey by Nature found that 75% of U.S. scientists are now considering leaving the country. They’re eyeing Europe. Canada. Anywhere that won’t dismantle science just to score political points.
Students Can’t Afford to Become Doctors
Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, at least we can train new doctors.” Nope. Think again.
The new law puts hard caps on student loans: $50,000 per year, $200,000 total. Sounds reasonable until you realize that med school usually costs way more than that. And the people hit hardest? Working-class kids. First-generation students. The ones who actually want to serve their communities.
Now, they’re being pushed into risky private loans or dropping out altogether. Others are stuck paying off loans forever thanks to predatory repayment plans.
We are pricing people out of becoming doctors.
This is not a glitch. It’s the feature.
Rural America Will Bleed First
Hospitals are shutting down. Fast.
More than 300 rural hospitals are at risk of closure. The cuts are so deep that Medicaid can’t keep the lights on. Veterans can’t get care at the VA. Pregnant women can’t find an OBGYN. Heart patients can’t find a cardiologist. People in crisis will die before they reach the next town.
And yes, some of the hardest-hit areas are the ones that voted for this mess. Kentucky, Texas, Alabama, Nebraska, Mississippi. Some of these states rely on Medicaid to cover one-third of their population. In Kentucky, half the children are on Medicaid.
Guess what happens when those hospitals close? Patients flood the next closest one. Then that one buckles. And so on. The ripple effect doesn’t stop at red state borders. This is going to swamp everyone.
Even you.
When the hospital is the last factory in town
Here is the punchline: the hospital is usually the largest or second-largest employer in a small town. Close it, and you do not just lose surgeons. You lose cafeteria workers, janitors, IT staff, ambulance drivers, pharmacists, home-health agencies, even the florist across the street who sells get-well bouquets. For every hospital job, local economists estimate another 0.3 to 0.8 jobs appear in the community through spending and supply chains. Pull the hospital and you drain that entire ecosystem. Property values drop, local taxes crater, Main Street shutters. Young families pack up because there is no ER for the kids. Retirees move because there is no cardiologist for the stents. The town dries out like a riverbed.
Meanwhile, We’re Told to “Just Be Healthy”
Trump’s America wants you to DIY your survival.
Eat some broccoli. Go for a walk. Sleep eight hours a night. If you’re lucky enough to have an HSA, fund it. If your parents lose their insurance, you’d better be ready to help.
Oh, and good luck if you’re poor, disabled, or living with chronic illness.
Because this isn’t about public health. It’s about political cruelty. It’s about punishing the vulnerable while handing more power to private equity firms, pharma companies, and insurance conglomerates. It’s about starving the public system until it collapses, then blaming the people it was supposed to serve.
So What Now?
You do what you can.
If you live in a state with a functioning legislature, fight. Demand higher taxes on the rich. Push for universal coverage. Fund mutual aid. Call your reps. Organize.
If you’re healthy, stay that way. If you’re not, you’re in danger. That’s not fear-mongering. That’s just how it is now.
If you are already disabled or medically compromised, see if you can start a mutual aid network in your community. I’m already in one that is connected to a local nonprofit. Push your town and state legislature to build in local support.
And maybe, just maybe, move.
Some states are trying to plug the gaps. Minnesota, for one. They’re not perfect, but they’re doing more than most. That might be enough.
Because while America is burning down its hospitals and exiling its doctors, some of us still want to live.
Some of us still believe health care should be a human right.
Even if the government doesn’t.
⸻
Sources
(These links document the claims and statistics referenced in the article.)
1. Washington Post: Big Beautiful Bill’s projected $1 trillion Medicaid cut and 17 million coverage losses
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/03/big-beautiful-bill-impacts-medicaid-taxes/
2. Becker’s Hospital Review: 750 percent surge in U.S. doctors opening physiciansapply.ca accounts and 65 percent jump in Canadian job inquiries
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/hospital-physician-relationships/us-physicians-seeking-canadian-licensure-up-750-in-7-months-5-notes/
3. AHA News (citing UNC Cecil G. Sheps Center): More than 300 rural hospitals at risk of closure under the One Big Beautiful Bill
https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2025-06-12-analysis-rural-hospitals-risk-due-cuts-obba
4. KFF Issue Brief: Medicaid covers roughly 24 percent of adults in rural America
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/5-key-facts-about-medicaid-coverage-for-people-living-in-rural-areas/
5. Politico Weekly Education: New federal loan caps—$50,000 per year, $200,000 lifetime—for medical and other professional students
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-education/2025/07/07/advocates-express-alarm-over-eds-civil-rights-complaint-dismissals-00440982
6. Reuters: NIH scientists detail $12 billion in research-grant terminations since Trump’s return
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/nih-scientists-speak-out-over-estimated-12-billion-trump-funding-cuts-2025-06-09/
7. KFF Health News: MOSAIC diversity-research grants abruptly canceled mid-award
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/nih-mosaic-diversity-grant-canceled-young-scientists-science-research-careers/
8. Nature: Survey finds 75 percent of U.S. scientists considering jobs abroad
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00938-y
9. Associated Press: Travel-ban and visa delays keep foreign medical residents from starting U.S. hospital posts
https://apnews.com/article/4d1aafa387086518735b385809bd4e1f
10. ABC News (AP wire): UNC analysis and Kentucky data—300+ hospitals at risk, $12.3 billion Medicaid loss for Kentucky, half of Kentucky children on Medicaid
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/rural-hospitals-brace-financial-hits-closure-republicans-1-123474194
Rural Health Association Blog, Rural hospitals: The beating heart of a local economy
https://www.ruralhealth.us/blogs/2018/06/rural-hospitals-the-beating-heart-of-a-local-economy