JD Vance leans into Maha ties as he eyes the 2028 election

US Vice-President JD Vance appeared at the Make America Healthy Again (Maha) summit in Washington, strengthening ties with the movement led by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Vance is widely regarded as a leading Republican contender for the 2028 presidential election.

Vance traded jokes with Kennedy about memes and the “carnivore” diet, then claimed that nearly $250bn in fraud had been identified in Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act marketplace. The administration has released few details about who was removed from the programmes or why the activity was deemed fraudulent.

Vance blamed immigrants, including undocumented people, for allegedly receiving Medicare benefits, although the source provides no documentation that this is happening. An AP-KFF survey found that 68% of rural Maha supporters said Trump’s health policies had either harmed or made no difference to health in their communities.

Corporate presence dominates summit

The second annual summit featured political and corporate figures, including representatives of UnitedHealth, Walmart, Anthropic and Grail. Bloomberg reported that companies paying $300,000 could receive speaking slots and a private dinner with Kennedy and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Art Caplan, professor emeritus at New York University, described the event as a conflict of interest and said access to officials appeared to follow a “pay to play” model. Speakers included Oz, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and senior Kennedy aide Stefanie Spear.

Activists challenge Maha’s direction

Maha began as an uneasy alliance of environmental, nutrition and anti-vaccine activists, but critics said the summit sidelined those groups in favour of corporate interests. Mary Talley Bowden and Kelly Ryerson said the programme did not reflect the issues that built the movement or mobilised its voters.

Kennedy, who has long criticised corporate influence over healthcare, praised OpenAI and artificial intelligence at the summit. He said large language models could provide a “second opinion”, while figures cited in the source show that 32% of Americans seek medical advice from AI and that chatbots are inaccurate about 25% of the time.

Caplan said an alliance between Vance and Kennedy’s faction could benefit Vance even if Maha continues to fracture. Kennedy’s favourability remains low: 23% of Americans viewed him favourably in an Annenberg Public Policy Center survey.