Trump said today: "Obamacare is finished, it's gone... There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore... You shouldn't even be talking about it."
Mr. Trump - you broke it, you bought it. What was once Obamacare now becomes Trumpcare, because he's got his little fingers all over it.
By eliminating the Cost Sharing Reductions (CSR), Trump believes he has killed Obamacare, eliminating profits for the insurance companies and lowering policy costs in the process. As is usual with Trump, he didn't fully understand the implications of what he was doing.
The ACA mandates that insurance companies MUST offer discounted policies to poorer people. To offset the cost to the insurance companies, the CSR was created - the government would reimburse the insurance companies for the money they were losing from the mandated discount. Congress never approved the CSR - Obama did it by Executive Order. The issue is still making its way through the courts, and the CSR payments have continued.
By eliminating the CSR, Trump removed the reimbursement the insurance companies were relying on to offer discounted policies. This made people like Rand Paul extremely happy, but here's the problem - since the ACA itself wasn't repealed, the mandate to provide those discounted policies is still in force. So that means the insurance companies will increase their rates and discount off the much higher rates - which means policy costs will go up, not down. For everyone.
Trump, in his impatience to do SOMETHING about healthcare, has just created a situation that will price any healthcare at all totally out of reach for some of the poorest in the country - and a lot of them are in the red states that voted for him. These were the same low-information voters who hated Obamacare but loved the ACA, unaware that they are the same thing
We've learned a lot about Trump in his first 9 months, but one thing really stands out - he really sucks at negotiation. No impulse control, no patience. The "Art of the Deal" is really to get the deal done at any cost just to be able to say you did it. |
