President Trump is pushing Congress to send healthcare subsidies directly to Americans instead of funneling the money through insurance companies that he says have gotten rich ripping off the country.

Trump posted his demands on Truth Social after the government reopened, making it clear this is the only healthcare reform he will support.

“THE ONLY HEALTHCARE I WILL SUPPORT OR APPROVE IS SENDING THE MONEY DIRECTLY BACK TO THE PEOPLE, WITH NOTHING GOING TO THE BIG, FAT, RICH INSURANCE COMPANIES, WHO HAVE MADE $TRILLIONS, AND RIPPED OFF AMERICA LONG ENOUGH. THE PEOPLE WILL BE ALLOWED TO NEGOTIATE AND BUY THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, INSURANCE. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!”

The president told Congress not to waste time on anything else.

“Congress, do not waste your time and energy on anything else. This is the only way to have great Healthcare in America!!! GET IT DONE, NOW.”

Republicans in Congress appear ready to back the president’s plan and are already floating ideas on how to make it happen. But they face a massive obstacle in the form of an industry that spent hundreds of millions of dollars last year alone to keep things exactly as they are.

Health advocate Calley Means, who previously worked as a special employee at the Department of Health and Human Services, spoke about the problem during last week’s MAHA Summit in Washington. He explained that real healthcare reform means reducing government funding and control, something insurance providers are fighting hard against.

Healthcare activist Dutch Rojas revealed shocking numbers about how much the industry spends to protect its interests. In 2024 alone, healthcare companies poured 744 million dollars into lobbying Congress to vote for keeping the current system in place.

The American Hospital Association led the charge in spending that money to block reforms that would have brought more transparency and fairness to healthcare pricing.

When transparency files are decoded, the same medical procedure can vary in cost by 500 percent in the same city. This has nothing to do with quality of care and everything to do with market power and influence.

Blue Cross Blue Shield contributed over 10 million dollars to Democrat and Republican candidates and political action committees through its various arms. United Healthcare gave more than 4 million dollars to make sure their interests were protected no matter who won elections.

Those are just campaign contributions. The lobbying money is even more outrageous.

Blue Cross spent over 27 million dollars on lobbying in 2024 alone. United Healthcare poured in more than 7 million dollars that same year. These companies have their fingers in every part of the system and will not let go easily.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is working to break apart this corporate medical system that fights against people taking control of their own health. But the bureaucracy he faces is enormous and filled with red tape that makes change difficult.

While Kennedy and his team try to cut through the mess, millions of Americans are desperate for treatments that could save their lives or the lives of people they love.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams recently brought attention to the problem because of his very public battle with aggressive prostate cancer. Adams tried to get access to a new FDA-approved drug called Pluvicto, but his insurance company Kaiser Permanente buried him in bureaucratic delays.

Adams has a huge platform, so he asked President Trump to get the FDA involved. Trump directed Secretary Kennedy to help Adams, and the cartoonist is now receiving the treatment he needs.

California conservative activist Lori Mills is fighting a similar battle. Her husband was recently diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer with only a 5 percent five-year survival rate. Mills used her platform to advocate for her husband to receive alternative treatment with a drug called Anktiva.

Her husband got approval and is currently undergoing treatment. But now they face another holdup from an FDA ethics board. Mills wrote on social media about her frustration.

“Well my husbands case got FDA approval but now it’s at an ethics board. The red tape needs to be cut. I sat in radiology today. So many sick people. One man was suffering as the radiation has caused him to be raw. I prayed for him. I don’t understand why my husband with a terminal cancer needs his case reviewed by an ethics board to see if ANKTIVA will hurt him. It’s ludicrous.”

Mills and Adams had enough public reach to push past the bureaucracy and get help. But what about parents of chronically sick children or people with diabetes who get peddled more pills instead of resources to make lifestyle changes that could actually help them?

For every high-profile case that gets attention, a million regular cases slip through the cracks because insurance companies block treatments, slow roll approvals, or make the costs too high for average families to afford.

The president’s goals are well-intentioned. But unless Congress and the American people strongly fight for this change, it is easy to remain skeptical that much progress will happen. If Congress does follow through and removes subsidies from insurance providers to give money back to Americans, that would be a huge leap forward.

Americans have the power to make this happen by lobbying Congress themselves for a new system that gives them back more of their money and more control over their healthcare choices instead of demanding that the failing Obamacare system continue to be propped up.