When I heard the news about President Trump imposing tariffs on almost everything that isn’t made in the U.S., the first thing I did was check the packaging on my son’s medical supplies. My son is disabled. He depends on medical supplies to manage his medical conditions and stay healthy at home. The supplies he needs are about to get a lot more expensive — and, as far as I can tell, there’s no government plan for making sure kids with medically complex conditions can get the supplies they need to stay alive during this crisis.
Over the past four months, tariffs on medical supplies have ranged from 10 to 245 percent depending on the items and where they’re made. The prices of medical supplies have increased in response to the tariff announcements, and they haven’t come back down, despite the recent temporary pauses and exemptions to the tariffs.
When my son’s medical supplies are delivered every month, the best way I’ve found to keep track of what supplies we have and what we might be missing is to spread everything out on the floor and take stock before putting things away.
With the threat of tariffs looming, I decided to look at every item in my son’s most recent supply order to try to understand how they might be affected. The plastic tubes and connectors for his ventilator are made in Mexico, China and Indonesia. His feeding tubes are made in Malaysia. The syringes we use to feed him are made in Denmark. His tracheostomy tubes are made in Mexico. The plastic nebulizers that we use to give him breathing medications are made in Germany. Only one item (a tiny plastic speaking valve) is made in the United States. It doesn’t just take a village to keep my son healthy, it takes the entire world economy.
These medical supplies aren’t a luxury — they’re my son’s life. The ventilator, which my son uses at night to breathe, pumps air through a set of plastic tubes called a circuit. This circuit is supposed to be replaced every week because the plastic gets dirty, cracks and falls apart over time. When kids are forced to use dirty and damaged ventilator circuits because they can’t get new ones, they get sick and die. No acceptable amount of duct tape will hold a child’s ventilator circuit together.
The theory behind the tariffs is that imposing fees on imported products will encourage people to buy products that are made in America instead. But I can’t buy the medical supplies my son needs from American manufacturers because they don’t make them. My son needs access to these supplies to breathe — he can’t just hold his breath for the next few years while manufacturers figure out how to produce these supplies in America and the federal government decides how to protect critical supply chains.
I’m a mom who is trying to make sure my child can get the plastic spacer he needs for his asthma inhaler. I shouldn’t have to check financial news every morning to keep track of how much that might cost.
Another layer of complexity is that these aren’t medical supplies that I can buy in a store. They’re specialty medical devices prescribed by a doctor, paid for by insurance and delivered to us by a home medical equipment company. When the cost of supplies goes up but the rate that companies get reimbursed by insurance stays the same, the result is rationing. I suspect this will happen in response to the tariff price increases because it happened during COVID — when supplies got more expensive, kids with medically complex conditions had to make do with less.
Added stress on existing supply chain issues
Price increases from tariffs will be just the latest issue in a system that is already deeply dysfunctional. Most of my son’s medical supplies have been difficult to get for the past five years due to supply chain problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. His medical supply company only sends out replacement tubes when they can get them from their own suppliers, so I’ve been washing my son’s tracheostomy tubes in the kitchen sink and sterilizing them in an Instant Pot. Other families like mine are doing the same. Tariffs are going to make the supply crunch even worse.
California can’t really solve this problem because we didn’t create it. The solution at the federal level is simple: Don’t put tariffs on medical supplies. Our representatives in Congress can put pressure on the administration to stop these destructive policies.
Meanwhile, there are no easy solutions for families like mine that are facing this situation. If I can give any advice, it would be to stay organized and keep track of what supplies you have on hand. It helps to be a little bit of a hoarder, especially if supplies become scarcer. Talk to your child’s doctors if your medical supply company won’t send you things that your child has been prescribed, because they may be able to intervene on your behalf. And reach out to your Medi-Cal managed care plan for help from their “enhanced case management” team.
Ultimately, solving this problem will require intervention from its source: the federal government. Managing life for a child with medically complex needs is already hard enough. My son shouldn’t have to go without necessary medical supplies because the Trump administration decided to tax things that he literally can’t live without.
Jennifer McLelland is the California Health Report’s disability rights columnist. She also serves as the policy director for home- and community-based services at Little Lobbyists, a family-led group that advocates for and with children with complex medical needs and disabilities
