JD Vance, widely considered to be the Republican frontrunner for the presidential election in 2028, is aligning himself with the Make America Healthy Again (Maha) movement as some say it is shedding its grassroots supporters in favor of political and corporate interests. The US vice-president has positioned himself as the inheritor of Make America Great Again (Maga), and attaching himself to Maha, which many in the Trump administration believe helped to win the 2024 election, signals a greater overlap between the two movements as the administration’s popularity plummets amid the war in Iran and rising prices. More than two-thirds (68%) of rural Maha supporters said that Trump’s health policies have “had a negative effect or no impact on the health of people where they live”, according in a new AP-KFF survey that highlights the disconnect between the sprawling political project and its grassroots support, especially in rural areas that overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2024 election.
More Americans view the president and vice-president unfavorably than favorably, according to a January survey by Pew Research. At the Maha summit in Washington DC on Tuesday, Vance traded jokes about memes and the “carnivore” diet of meat and fermented foods with Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the leader of Maha. But Vance also highlighted his role in identifying what he says is fraud in Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act marketplace – blaming it on immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants.
Vance said that “the states that administer the programs don’t enforce them at all”, claiming that undocumented people were receiving Medicare benefits, though there is no documentation that this is occurring. It’s about giving benefits to illegal aliens,” Vance said to applause. Kennedy alluded to the more cost-efficient health systems of Europe, which have universal healthcare, to speak about the inefficiencies of the health system in the US, where costs have been “allowed to get out of control”.
Vance seemed to point to the need for stronger regulation of the health system, saying that programs like Medicaid and Medicare are stronger when fraud can be detected – though the Trump administration has largely focused on deregulation. Speaking at the event, Vance underlined “the politics that Maha is stirring up”, said Art Caplan, professor emeritus at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He wants to replicate what Trump did, get the Maha devotees on his side, not Rubio’s.” Vance poked fun at secretary of state Marco Rubio, his closest political rival, saying Rubio “doesn’t have a great poker face”, which makes for “absolutely incredible” meme material.
The second annual summit showcased the fracturing of the Maha movement, which has often been an uneasy alliance among environmental, nutrition and anti-vaccine activists, and political and corporate actors. The event appeared to eschew the former and prioritize the latter, featuring companies like UnitedHealth, Walmart and Anthropic, including companies with active business before the US government. Grail, an experimental cancer-treatment company whose approval is currently before the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was a top sponsor.
Companies that paid $300,000 were given the option of speaker slots, as well as a private dinner with Kennedy and Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), according to reporting by Bloomberg. The Maha Center, which organized the event, is one of many Maha-affiliated endeavors headed by Tony Lyons, a longtime vaccine critic, who has paid Kennedy $4m in the past year. Tickets were available for “Maha members” who pay $6,000 a year to Maha Holdings, whose sole board member is Finn Kennedy, Kennedy’s 29-year-old son.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
