The White House Announces Trump’s ”Great” Healthcare Plan — Is It Any Good?

Donald Trump announced an outline for a plan the White House is calling the Great Healthcare Plan, which the president says will help make healthcare more affordable for Americans by giving them money directly.

The Trump administration shared a statement about the plan on Jan. 15, 2026, outlining some statements made by Trump, which included quotes about upcoming changes to prescription plans and requirements regarding clarity of pricing options at doctors' offices and hospitals.

The statements also included several of Trump's thoughts on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was spearheaded by former president Barack Obama, and passed in 2010. Trump says he is urging lawmakers to support his new plan, which he says will help with affordability issues surrounding healthcare.

However, experts warn that this would undo the ACA, taking with it some of the protections that many Americans need to obtain health insurance. Here's what we know about Trump's healthcare plan.

According to the White House website, the Great Healthcare plan would take the money used to subsidize premiums on the Marketplace and send it directly to Americans. This would then allow them to shop for their own insurance policies outside of the Marketplace, which was created as part of the ACA.

Additionally, the plan would require insurance companies to make certain information public, like the number of claims they deny each year, and how many denials end up overturned during appeals.

It would also force insurance companies to publish rate and coverage comparisons directly to their websites in what the administration refers to as "plain English," so that people can price shop.

As part of the plan, Trump says that prescription drug prices would also continue to come down, a drop that he says could amount to 500 percent, which can be realized by those who shop for their medications through Trumprx.gov, which the president says will begin as early as January 2026.

It is worth noting that many experts are calling Trump out for the figures he's using to describe prescription drug savings, since a 500 percent reduction would imply that prescription drug makers would actually be paying you to take the medications when you order them from his website.

Republicans in Congress don't appear to have had much time to respond to Trump's plan announcement, since many of them are still working to approve subsidy extensions for insurance purchased through the ACA.

In the hours after Trump announced his healthcare plan, a health policy executive with a nonpartisan research group spoke to NBC News, cautioning people against getting too excited. First off, he pointed out that current subsidies aren't extra money that is given to insurers, but instead are applied directly to premiums to help lower monthly bills.

Additionally, he warns that those who used the money sent by the White House to shop for plans outside of the Marketplace could lose their protections.

That includes things like denying people coverage on pre-existing conditions, as well as lifetime maximums.

NBC News points out that there are others who question how much people can actually save under the new plan, and how it would work, since the White House didn't spell out how it would manage things like qualifying for funds, how they would be paid out, and what dollar amounts people could expect to receive.