Sick and dying Americans should largely blame themselves for their health conditions. That’s what Sen. Roger Marshall said as Republicans prepare to cut health care services and increase costs for millions of Americans.
“Look, your health outcomes are about 70 percent determined by you,” Marshall said Sunday on Fox News. Sunday morning futures. “It depends on what you eat and your surroundings. When you come into my office as a doctor, I may affect 10 or 20 percent of your health outcomes.
Marshall did not say where he got those percentage figures. A former obstetrician-gynecologist, he now leads the newly formed Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) caucus. He said the caucus will work with Dr. Muhammad Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice for health and human services secretary, to “improve[e] Achieve health outcomes by prioritizing nutrition, providing affordable, nutrient-dense foods, and focusing on the availability of primary care to address the root causes of chronic disease. Kennedy frequently made anti-science statements, including against vaccines (“You know, no vaccine is safe and effective,” he said). Kennedy also threatened to fire scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and cut NIH and disease control and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget and reduce infectious disease research in favor of “preventative, alternative, and holistic approaches to health.”
Marshall said MAHA will address “nutrition,” “chronic disease issues” and “mental health crises.”
“We need to make these healthy foods affordable and accessible and work to eliminate and minimize the toxins we’re exposed to,” Marshall told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. “We’re going after ultra-processed foods. They face a big problem and a huge challenge.
The idea that Americans are responsible for their own health outcomes through the choices they make at the grocery store helps justify the coming disruption of health care protections and access. And it easily ignores other systemic social determinants of health, such as poverty, racism, and economic instability.
In an attempt to emphasize individual responsibility for health outcomes, the incoming Trump administration and congressional Republicans are weighing proposals that, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, would “undermine the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) coverage protections.” , making medical coverage wider”. Costly and less comprehensive, shifting more costs to states and increasing the number of uninsured Americans.”
Marshall voted in favor of repealing the Affordable Care Act and opposed protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. He supports a free-market approach to health care and advocates reducing restrictions on physician-owned hospitals, an industry in which he and his family are heavily invested. In the three years leading up to 2020, Marshall’s wife earned between $195,000 and $450,000 through real estate investments in hospitals owned by doctors, according to a 2020 report. kansas city star.
“As Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,'” Marshall told STAT News in 2017.
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