President Donald Trump is now trying to break the health-care system all by himself, although he has more help than he might acknowledge. On Thursday, Trump launched an assault on Obamacare from two angles. First, the White House staged a signing ceremony for an executive order designed to push people into what are known, accurately, as “junk” insurance plans—the kind, common before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, that never seem to cover people when they are actually sick and that extort and abandon those with preëxisting conditions. Trump, in his remarks at the ceremony, referred to this choice as “fleeing the failing Obamacare plans.” And then, a few hours later, he did more to make Obamacare fail, by saying that he would withhold the cost-sharing subsidies that the government currently pays insurance companies in order to reduce deductibles and co-pays for many low-income people. Companies will undoubtedly respond by leaving the Obamacare exchanges, where such plans are now sold. Both moves had one thing in common: they recklessly target vulnerable Americans. But in doing so, they will, as with so many of Trump’s moves, increase risks for everyone. Read More
Related Article:
New: States have already tried Trump’s health-care order. It went badly.
New: Trumpcare sabotage #1: Trump reneges on Obamacare payments, portending turmoil for consumers and taxpayers
In the first article Amy Davidson Sorkin examines the kinds of risks to which the executive order President Trump signed yesterday exposes the American public. In the second article Mark A. Hall looks at the troubling history of unregulated association plans and the "Kentucky disaster" of the 1990s and the lesson it offers for other states today. In the third article Michael Hiltzik examines the short-term and long-term costs of Trump's actions for the American taxpayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment