President Donald Trump’s attempt to transform American health insurance is almost complete.
Twenty months ago, frustrated after attempts to repeal Obamacare fell apart in the Republican-controlled Senate, Trump pledged to use executive power to do what Congress failed to legislate. An executive order set in motion regulations to promote “health care choice and competition across the United States.”
On Thursday, the administration finished the last of three rules to do just that — advancing conservative policies without undoing the central framework established by the ACA.
Since Congress can’t get its act together on HealthCare, I will be using the power of the pen to give great HealthCare to many people – FAST
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Together, the changes have loosened Obama-era restrictions on short-term health plans that don’t meet the Affordable Care Act’s standards. They’ve permitted small employers to join together to buy lightly regulated coverage called association health plans. And the regulation published Thursday gives employers, particularly small businesses, more flexibility to steer tax-exempt dollars to employees for health care.
“We’re putting the people back in charge with more choice for better care at a far lower cost — and other people will not be paying for their health care,” Trump said Friday at a White House announcement. “We won’t be taxing you into oblivion.”
Trump also took the opportunity to attack potential 2020 Democratic opponents — singling out Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in particular — for supporting a “Medicare for All” health plan that would expand the government insurance program for the elderly and disabled to cover all Americans.
Lawmakers, Staff To Keep Their Obamacare Benefits
As for the rest of the U.S. population, mature athletes included, they would have to make do without these pro-consumer rules. They would have to deal with the broader repeal bill that would allow insurers to refuse people with pre-existing conditions and set a minimum amount of coverage for all health insurance plans.
Vox’s Sarah Kliff, who first reported the news about the amendment, observed that the Republicans seem to be very fond of this particular policy to include it in a new amendment. However, she added that they do not seem to like it enough to make it applicable to themselves and their own people.
And before anyone dismiss this report as hearsay, well, believe it or not, it is true. The man who created this unfair amendment, Rep. Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, confirmed the scheme himself to Kliff.
