Trump Sells Medicare Waiver For $5 Million Donation

The New York Times reports:

Oliver Burckhardt came prepared for the dinner that President Trump hosted for a small group of major donors at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida on March 1. A week earlier, one of Mr. Burckhardt’s biotech companies had donated $5 million to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump political committee, that paved the way for him to attend the event. At the dinner, Mr. Burckhardt got a chance to speak briefly to the president and other guests about himself and the work of his company, Extremity Care, which makes pricey medical products including paper-thin bandages made of dried bits of placenta.

He also brought copies of a flier urging the Trump administration to reverse a plan to restrict Medicare reimbursement for the bandages and criticizing former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for having “rammed through a policy that would create more suffering and death for diabetic patients on Medicare.” The next morning, Mr. Trump posted the flier on his social media site. It was not just symbolic. About one month later, the Trump administration announced it would delay until next year the Biden administration plan to limit Medicare’s coverage of the bandages, known as skin substitutes.

Read the full article. Multiple other outlets have reported that the placenta bandages do not work.

A $5m check can get you a preferential Medicare policy in the Trump administration. https://t.co/ja9S0rLVP1

— Sam Stein (@samstein) August 7, 2025