The labs that were supposed to cure the next generation of cancer and Alzheimer’s patients almost went dark after the Trump Administration proposed to gut the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget by 40%. If Congress didn’t reject his proposal, the administration would have effectively halted the development of nearly 100 new lifesaving drugs over the next decade, leaving America’s most vulnerable to pay for tax cuts with their lives.
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But that’s just the beginning.
The Root previously told you about the administration’s legislative centerpiece, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed in July 2025. Already, the bill has begun dismantling the safety net that millions of Americans depend on for survival.
Priced Out of a Pulse
By implementing strict federal work requirements and ending the Affordable Care Act’s expanded premium tax credits, the administration has effectively priced 16.5 million people out of their health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO), leaving folks to choose between paying the rent and treating a chronic illness.
For a patient with diabetes or heart disease, the budget cut is a direct path to a preventable emergency room visit that many will not survive.
The War on Air
Trump’s budget cuts has also effected the air Americans breathe. By officially eliminating the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding in early 2026—the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has surrendered the authority to regulate the very pollutants that drive respiratory failure.
A recent study in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine are a direct assault on the lungs of the most vulnerable, projected to cause thousands of premature deaths from asthma and lung disease as soot and smog levels climb, completely unchecked.
The Hunger Gap
According to the Center for Global Development (CGD), the administration’s stop-work orders and subsequent funding freezes specifically targeted World Food Programme (WFP) pipelines because they were considered low priority. That move ended lifesaving assistance to over 2.4 million people in Yemen alone.
Over in northern Nigeria and Somalia, where therapeutic food supply chains have already collapsed due to the withdrawal of U.S. obligations. When mobile clinics and food distribution centers no longer receive billions in humanitarian assistance, according to the Women’s Refugee Commission, preventable deaths are no longer a projection, but a heartbreaking reality of rising mortality rates of malnourished children.
The War on the Vulnerable
In late 2025, the Social Security Administration finalized a regulatory overhaul that represents the largest disability benefit cut in U.S. history, making it significantly harder for adults over 50 to qualify for the support they need to survive, according to reports.
An analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP) showed these covert cuts are projected to reduce SSDI eligibility for new claimants by up to 30% for older adults—mirroring Ronald Reagan-era terminations that led to the documented deaths of over 21,000 Americans who were left with no choice but to die in poverty.
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