Access to Healthcare Services and Health Information Under Threat in the US.

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Since the entry into office of US President Donald Trump at the beginning of 2025, there has been a backsliding in terms of access to healthcare services and information at the hands of the Trump administration. Citizens are facing the increasingly alarming repercussions of budget cuts, the undermining of access to healthcare information, and the non-transparent handling of private medical data.

In February, the Trump administration had restricted public access to several Health and Human Services (HHS) webpages and datasets containing federal health information resources of fundamental importance for citizens. These missing webpages were related to critical health issues such as reproductive rights, contraception, maternal health, HIV, and mental health. 

The nature of missing resources points to disproportionate negative effects towards vulnerable groups, such as women, LGBT+ people and people with mental health issues, who already face severe obstacles in accessing some fundamental healthcare services. Such nuance signals a double human rights breach, whereby citizens are being not only deprived of their fundamental right to health, but also discriminated on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity and mental health conditions.

Numerous further actions by the Trump administration have contributed to worsen the state of the art of healthcare quality and access in the US. Layoffs and budget cuts at HHS have resulted in a reduction of the production and availability of health information resources for the public and healthcare workers. In July, the Trump administration promoted the initiative of a private health tracking system to facilitate the sharing of medical records to private tech companies, which has been largely viewed as posing a risk to patients’ privacy and data security.

The provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Reconciliation bill signed by the Trump administration in July, are set to cumulatively cut over 1 trillion dollars from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which would mean for 15 million Americans to lose access to their health insurance. To make matters worse, the recent US government shutdown has already disrupted fundamental healthcare services such as tele-health, and risks disrupting more services such as the running of Community Health Centres (CHCs).

Leading politicians of the Trump administration also have a long history of spreading misinformation about health issues. President Trump himself has, in several occasion, made inaccurate claims about health issues such as vaccines, autism and hepatitis B. Trump-nominated US Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, has been criticised for misleading claims about a disproved link between vaccines and autism and accusations that Covid was allegedly engineered to target specific ethnic groups.

The Trump administration’s poor handling of healthcare issues is in line with a generalised disregard for the importance of healthcare, common among members of the Republican party.  Public opinion, civil society organisations and independent commissions alike have been denouncing the damage that this approach can cause to US citizens’ enjoyment of their right to health, but as of today, the Trump administration has not seemed to backtrack on any of its related decisions.

written by Alessia Milillo