Will, this is fascism 101, privatize and plunder the public so you can enrich yourself and your oligarch backers.
And let the poor die in the street.
And we saw this coming.
America has stopped giving a shit. And it will come back to bite Americans. Hard. There’s a lot of leopards a-comin’.
Bear in mind - the poor (even the elderly poor) generally get coverage under medicaid or qualify as dual-eligibles. But it ain’t much.
Federal funding for medicaid is actually already in the shitter so plan administration and sustainability is mostly a state matter. If Trump suddenly pulled medicaid funding it’d cause a lot of financial stress but most states could probably weather the storm in the short term.
The people really fucking shafted by Medicare cuts would be the disabled which (as little help as they’re given under the US system) would be unable to afford regular care on medicaid’s FFS model (where partial costs can often exceed the amount they’re legally allowed to save (it sucks, but that’s a separate topic)). Anyone like my stepson who has BPD, ASD, and a few more spicy disorders would be fucked if they tried to maintain daylight (let alone overnight) staff supports. That’s not even getting into med or doc costs…
And the old folks, of course… it’ll be an extremely rude awakening to elderly conservatives and probably cause a real shock to the stock market as people are forced to disinvest to avoid dying if they’re lucky enough to have that option.
