Trump Proposes Direct Health-Care Payments, $2,000 Tariff Dividend - Officials Say No Formal Plan Yet
Trump Suggests Direct Health-Care Payments to Americans, $2,000 Tariff Dividends, but Officials Say No Formal Proposal Exists President Donald Trump over the weekend suggested reimbursing Americans directly for their healthcare costs and issuing $2,000 dividends from tariff revenues. Administration officials later clarified that these were not formal proposals submitted to the Senate.
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, the president wrote: "I am recommending to Republican senators that the hundreds of billions of dollars currently going to money-sucking insurance companies to prop up the bad ObamaCare system should be PAID DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE, SO THEY CAN BUY THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, INSURANCE".
The following day, he posted again, urging Republicans to deposit money directly into Americans' health accounts, allowing people to save pre-tax dollars for certain medical expenses.
Regarding his tariff agenda, Trump wrote: "We are taking in trillions of dollars and will soon begin reducing our ENORMOUS $37 trillion debt. Record investments in the U.S., factories and works are appearing everywhere. A dividend of at least $2,000 per person (excluding high-income individuals!) will be paid out to everyone".
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that the president's health-care proposal to Republican senators was not yet fully developed. "We have no formal proposal", Bessent told ABC's This Week, adding, "We're not proposing anything to the Senate right now".
He explained that any such proposal depended on ending the government shutdown, which would enter its 41st day on Monday. On Sunday evening, senators reached an agreement with the potential to end the shutdown. "The president posts about it, but we need to reopen the government first before we do that. We won't negotiate with the Democrats until they reopen the government. Plain and simple", Bessent said.
Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, also downplayed the idea on Sunday morning on CBS News' Face the Nation: "He's just thinking out loud and trying to help the Senate find a deal to reopen the government".
"Everyone agrees that people should have access to healthcare. So why not just send a check to those paying higher premiums and let them decide?" Hassett added. He emphasized that the idea had hardly been discussed in the Senate or within the Trump administration.
