The MEWAs Trump is expanding in his latest executive order have a history. According to the government, it is not good one.
President Trump intends to sign an executive order this morning expanding association health plans. But 25 years ago, federal watchdogs concluded that such plans ripped off hundreds of thousands of Americans by refusing to pay their medical claims while violating state insurance laws and even criminal statutes.
Back in 1992, the Government Accountability Office issued a scathing report on these multiple employer welfare arrangements (known as MEWAs; they’re pronounced “mee-wahs”) in which small businesses could pool funds to get the lower-cost insurance typically available only to large employers.
These MEWAs, said the government, left at least 398,000 participants and their beneficiaries with more than $123 million in unpaid claims between January 1988 and June 1991.
Furthermore, states reported massive and widespread problems with MEWAs.More than 600 plans in nearly every U.S. state failed to comply with insurance laws. Thirty-three states said enrollees were sometimes left without health coverage when MEWAs disbanded. Read More
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One option President Trump did not include in his executive order is that he and the Trump Organization will pay the medical expenses of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who discover that their new health care plans do not cover these expenses or refuse to pay their claims.
At his inauguration President Trump swore to uphold the laws of the land, which includes the Affordable Care Act. Isn't his dismantling of that act a violation of the oath that he took? Doesn't it constitute an attempt to change the law by fiat and represent a flagrant violation of the US Constitution - the action of a would-be dictator and not that of an elected president of a constitutional Republic that vests legislative authority not in its head of state but in its Congress? He may be impatient with the democratic legislative process, have made promises to his base, and does not want to lose their support, but that does not justify his actions.
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