It’s just about harvest time. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has passed. A Big Re-Do of the Farm Bill has not. Do you have enough workers?
Secretary Rollins says Trump wants an all-American workforce. To her, this means that people who lose their Medicaid can go (be sent? or required?) to work on farms to pick tomatoes, cotton, peaches, milk the cows, or do whatever, to earn their healthcare.
- This reminds me of Mao Zedong’s order to send teachers, political enemies, and many others into the countryside to work in the fields and do construction.
Rollins says there will be no amnesty for US farm workers. I wonder where else the folks in need of healthcare will be required to work? Maybe the packing plants? Maybe not just in agriculture — how about fixing roads and bridges? Or building a new skyscraper? These are all places where immigrant workers predominate.
Let’s imagine this: Your mother is 60 years old; she has a heart condition and severe arthritis, but she’s not yet old enough for Medicare or Social Security. Her healthcare was once covered through her husband’s job, but that job is long gone. Her daughter works overtime to help her pay for medications and hospital visits. Oh well. Rollins and the President have a plan for her.
See examples in the Medicaid Stories Library.
Or, imagine with me again. Your sister has a child with a severe disability and many medical costs. She had to choose between keeping her job, paying someone else to care for her child, and regularly struggling to find trustworthy caregivers, or quitting her job and providing care herself. She loves the child. Now, the “deciders that be” have kicked her off Medicaid. No worries. Rollins and the President have a plan for her.
See “A Missouri mother’s plea: ‘Without Medicaid, we would lose everything.’”
We can call this new plan ‘Work the Fields for Healthcare.‘ A bureaucrat within the Medicaid program will decide whether you qualify for Medicaid. Immigrant farmworkers are historically paid low wages, so no worries — you won’t earn too much to qualify.
And for YOU — our farmers, this is an “opportunity” to train people how to do your farmwork.
The best thing, according to Rollins, is that Medicaid has about 34 million people — people expected to lose their Medicaid in Trump’s “BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.”
Somehow, I think this “BEAUTIFUL” plan will not work.
Editor’s note: As of early 2025, there are approximately 71.4 million people enrolled in Medicaid. This number includes both adults and children, with about 37.4 million children enrolled. Another 7.3 million people are enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).