From Today's Bloomberg Editorial Board Trump Can Still Wreck Health Care Not fans of the Affordable Care Act. Photographer: Mark Wilson/Getty Images 38 March 28, 2017 7:30 AM EDT In his very first executive order, directing federal agencies to "waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay" various parts of the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump stated his intention to repeal the law. Two months later, with that effort in shambles, the order has become the administration’s entire game plan on health care. That’s not only inadequate, but reckless. With no Republican replacement for the ACA on the horizon, every step taken to weaken the individual insurance market and Medicaid risks destabilizing a health-care system in need of reinforcement. The Health and Human Services Department wasted no time following Trump’s order. In January, it withdrew $5 million in advertising to remind people that the deadline for purchasing 2017 health-insurance plans on the individual market was at hand. If the department is as reluctant to publicize the sign-up period next fall, the number of insured Americans stands to fall. How Ryan's Health Care Lessons Can Shape Tax Reform The Internal Revenue Service, for its part, responded to the executive order by abandoning its plan to reject tax returns from filers who failed to indicate whether they had health insurance, as required by the law’s individual mandate. This, too, discourages people from buying insurance, especially healthy people who are needed to balance the risk pools and keep premiums reasonable. The Justice Department could be next to cause trouble, by ending the government’s defense against a congressional lawsuit that aims to stop some $7 billion in federal “cost-sharing” payments to insurers, payments that enable them to reduce customers’ out-of-pocket costs. Withdrawing this support would discourage insurers from continuing to participate in the individual market. And of course there is more mischief Health and Human Services can make. Secretary Tom Price has indicated he’s willing to let states impose a job requirement on Medicaid recipients -- an idea that, if it could be enforced, would cause many people to lose or fail to qualify for insurance. Price could also narrow the so-called essential health benefits that the ACA requires policies to provide, including coverage for birth control and mental health care. And he could greatly expand exemptions to the individual mandate. To be sure, this executive power has legal limits. The ACA was passed, as the Supreme Court has noted, “to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.” And the president is sworn to faithfully execute the law. Fortunately, the existing system is not on the verge of collapse. Indeed, it stands to become more stable as the mix of participating insurance companies shifts. But there are still too many people without insurance, and in many states too few affordable choices. The president’s responsibility is to strengthen the system -- not push it toward failure, or sit back and wait for it to “explode” in the hope that voters will blame someone else. There are signs Trump may be interested in working with Democrats on the problem. If true, that would be a welcome change in approach. Lasting improvements to the U.S. health-insurance system will depend on both parties offering their most constructive ideas. To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg View’s editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net.
"risks destabilizing a health care system in need of reinforcement?" That's why you can't even reason with these guys because they always start with a subjective opinion and expect you to accept it as the truth before you even listen.
That's what editorials are about. Subjective Opinion. The writer may expect you to except their opinion at face value, or if they are intentionally or unwittingly presenting disinformation, hope you will! The latter are writing mainly for the gullible. Fortunately, you are not gullible. You read as much as you can of opinion and counter opinion, then weigh the two in terms of what makes the most sense to you personally -- the yardstick is reasonableness and your experience. You discount heavily information that you know comes from highly biased sources, or sources that self-disclose that they are low information, i.e., few readily verifiable facts or data, or presenting alternate views clearly in conflict with verified facts or first hand information. Does what I am being told make sense in light of other information I have? That's how you form your own opinion.
First we have to at least agree with the problem before we can discuss how to solve it. I don't agree that we have a health care system that the government can destabilize and I don't believe the system we have now needs reinforcing. Repeal maybe. How did we get here? First talk about that. Why did my parents and grandparents not have a health care crisis? I never heard about a health care crisis until Bill's Hillary was working on a plan. It was all over the place then. When her plan failed the health care crisis went away. Now it's back again. Why?
Yes, absolutely! We won't get anywhere unless we can do that. You're too young to know the answers to those good questions. Some of us old folks know them. Hillary's plan never got a chance to fail. In all likelihood it would have been no better than our present O'Bomney care. But the fact that the vested interests could not afford to let it see the light of day suggests it may have had some merit. And this is not Hillary's plan that's back, but the ACA does "Rhyme" with Hillarycare. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993 ) You're too young to know these things. Stay innocent.
I'm old enough to know Ryan has heathcare cartel bribe written all over him. I can just hear him saying, We can't do that, we will lose all our healthcare support. And support means bribes.
Ann Coulter's proposal for health care reform. http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2017-03-29.html#read_more It would be clearly advantageous to 80% of the population, compared to what they have now. So of course, congressional republicans want no part of it. Why should they give away a lobbyist ATM machine? Trump on the other hand could remake his reputation on this issue by pushing it. He'd have dems on one side, blocking something that would clearly benefit the vast majority of voters. On the other side, the republicans would be showing voters why they should be swept out of office and replaced with based Trump people. Lose-lose for both.