Trump Beats Dems And Washington Bureaucrats With New Life Saving Care Plan

Ahead of the midterm elections, Democrats keep campaigning on health care. But while the minority talks, the Trump administration has delivered action and results. The recent release of a new national plan for kidney care illustrates this, working to improve the lives of vulnerable patients and those with chronic diseases.

For decades, kidney care has suffered under the weight of stultifying government bureaucracy. In 1972, Medicare started covering all patients with end-stage renal disease, regardless of age. On the positive side, that change meant that kidney care patients would no longer face potential death from treatments they could not afford. But government involvement and micromanagement also meant that treatments had changed little in more than half a century.

Since his first term, the Trump administration has worked to change the trajectory of kidney care. The new national plan both summarizes the significant achievements to date and includes additional action items to further improve care.

For instance, policy changes over the past few years have increased the percentage of patients using in-home dialysis. In-home treatment eliminates regular trips to dialysis centers, giving patients more freedom in their daily lives. But the national plan also proposes going further by introducing new competition into a dialysis sector dominated by two large incumbents and allowing faster approval of innovative care models.

Similarly, the plan notes that recent actions have improved the organ transplant system. The first Trump administration instituted new accountability measures for regionally based organ transplant organizations; last year, for the first time ever, the administration decertified an OPO. Most importantly, these reforms to organ transplant regulations helped increase the number of kidneys transplanted from deceased donors by one-third from 2018 through 2024. But policies outlined in the national plan could encourage additional transplants from living donors, giving more sick patients the gift of life.

Both the Trump administration’s earlier efforts and the proposals in the national plan explicitly embrace conservative ideas. The plan states outright that “in many cases, government should do less, focusing its efforts on promoting accountability, competition, and innovation.”

Over five decades of kidney care policy being directed by the federal bureaucrats who run Medicare led to outdated treatment options delivered by a few deeply entrenched providers. But the Trump administration has embarked upon a different course, demonstrating how good ideas and the principles of competition and innovation, when put into practice, can deliver results for American patients.

Democrats love to attack conservatives on health policy, both during elections in general and during this campaign in particular. Conservatives should not shrink from these debates, but instead use the kidney care national plan as a roadmap to fight back.

Kidney care offers a clear example that more taxes, more spending, and more regulations aren’t the solution for our nation’s health care system. The Trump administration’s national kidney care plan shows an alternative vision moving forward. And the successes to date confirm how conservative principles can improve the quality of care for vulnerable patients with chronic disease nationwide.

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Mary Marslender is founder of Leverage PR, a political strategist, and disability advocate. 

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