Trump issues EO on Obamacare

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to weaken the Obamacare law and make it easier for Americans to buy bare-bones health insurance plans, but the action faces possible legal challenges.

Trump’s order gives people more access to plans that do not cover essential health benefits such as maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, and mental health and addiction treatment. Obamacare requires most small business and individual health plans to cover those benefits.

Trump wants to make it easier for small businesses to band together as associations across state lines to buy cheaper, less regulated health plans with fewer benefits.

The order also seeks to change an Obama-era limit on the time span people can use short-term health insurance plans, which are cheaper but cover few medical benefits. Those plans are currently limited to three months.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...care-boost-bare-bones-insurance-idUSKBN1CH24C
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
So what are your feelings on this.
To me it sounds good. Please explain why it isn't.

It's a step in the right direction. I'm glad he and Rand put aside their campaign differences and worked together on this.

While the EO is light on anything specific, it is intended to allow people to band together to purchase healthcare. This is something that has been talked about for decades, but Rand Paul has been talking about it in recent years and I think it's the best way for people with existing conditions or people in small businesses who don't offer plans to be insured without paying a huge amount of money. It doesn't necessarily seek to remove any portion of Obamacare, but offers workarounds. If the idea that people will move toward cheaper plans holds up, this EO is likely to make matters worse with those covered under Obamacare as the young and healthy are more likely to go to the cheaper, lighter plans; leaving the older and sicker on Obamacare only expediting the "death spiral" that comes with that.

Since it is light on details and essentially tells HHS to find ways to expand association health plans, the EO will likely not have any measurable effect anytime soon. It'll take years to figure out, not to mention years of legal battles. Since this is done by EO, that means the next President can hypothetically reverse these types of plans, bringing us back to square 1. Experts from the American Enterprise Institute and Kaiser Family Foundation have already expressed concerns that this EO won't hold up in court.

"If the executive order is as expansive as it sounds and association plans are allowed to cherry-pick healthy people, it could truly cause the individual insurance market under the ACA to collapse, leaving people with pre-existing conditions without access to affordable coverage," says Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

But he says exempting insurance plans from the ACA rules through regulation would be difficult.

"They would have to twist current laws into a pretzel to allow both individuals and small businesses to get insurance through associations exempt from the ACA's rules and operating across state lines," Levitt says.

Joseph Antos, a health policy scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agrees. "Trying to exempt these new associations from ACA rules that apply to all other plans doesn't strike me as something that's going to stand up in federal court," Antos says.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...sign-order-to-expand-health-insurance-options
 

Sapidus

Well-Known Member
It's doubtful this junk will hold up in court.

"Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday directing an overhaul of major federal regulations that would encourage the rise of a raft of cheap, loosely regulated health insurance plans that don’t have to comply with certain Obamacare consumer protections and benefit rules. They’d attract younger and healthier people — leaving older and sicker ones in the Obamacare markets facing higher and higher costs.

It’s not yet clear how far the administration will go, or how quickly it can implement the president’s order. But if successful, the new rules could upend the way businesses and individuals buy coverage — lowering premiums for the healthiest Americans at the expense of key consumer protections and potentially tipping the Obamacare markets into a tailspin.

The NYT adds:

Although Mr. Trump has been telegraphing his intentions for more than a week, Democrats and some state regulators are now greeting the move with increasing alarm, calling it another attempt to undermine President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. They warn that by relaxing standards for so-called association health plans, Mr. Trump would create low-cost insurance options for the healthy, driving up costs for the sick and destabilizing insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act.

It would have a very negative impact on the markets,” said Mike Kreidler, the insurance commissioner in Washington State. “Our state is a poster child of what can go wrong. Association health plans often shun the bad risks and stay with the good risks.”


No9t to mention this would screw people with pre existing conditions
 
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awpitt

Main Streeter
I think this EO is a step in the right direction; however, it would be better if this were actual legislation just to cover the uncertainty of an EO.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
If the executive order is as expansive as it sounds and association plans are allowed to cherry-pick healthy people, it could truly cause the individual insurance market under the ACA to collapse, leaving people with pre-existing conditions without access to affordable coverage," says Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.



for ####s sake dude ......
IT ISN'T AFFORDABLE NOW .........
 

Sapidus

Well-Known Member
:bs:


it goes up every yr ..... lets try something new

This will guarantee people with preexisting conditions will have little or no choice as to how much they pay. Do you know that health care bills are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy in this county?

Trump is in business for business interests in this country. This absolutely going to make make prices sky rocket with the illusion that you will be able to buy short term crappy insurance that isn't gonna do jack to save you money when the bill comes
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
for ####s sake dude ......
IT ISN'T AFFORDABLE NOW .........

You're preaching to the choir but for many with those conditions, Obamacare is affordable. At least moreso than it would be if that individual would buy private insurance.
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
It makes sense to me. If the law is so arbitrary that the previous president could routinely exempt people for political reasons, it seems that this president should have the same authorities to exempt the rules as he sees fit.
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
This will guarantee people with preexisting conditions will have little or no choice as to how much they pay. Do you know that health care bills are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy in this county?

Trump is in business for business interests in this country. This absolutely going to make make prices sky rocket with the illusion that you will be able to buy short term crappy insurance that isn't gonna do jack to save you money when the bill comes

Let's say that you are correct (you're not, but let's pretend). For whom will the prices skyrocket? It won't be for the people getting lower quality insurance - that will be dirt cheap! Win. It won't be for the bulk of people on standard plans - it was cheaper (by leaps and bounds) before the ACA was passed, so it's likely to lower back if non-life-threatening items are no longer a requirement, and men don't have to take out insurance against their potential pregnancies. The elderly are mandated to be on Medicare.

That leaves (you guessed it) pre-existing conditions - those with HUGE cost. They'll have to "pay their fair share". Meanwhile, the 85+% who were happier before can go back to being happier. And, people are no longer losing as much liberty (just a little, not more).

Sounds like a win to me.

But, if you can find in the Constitution where the federal government has the right to mandate purchasing a product for existing, I'll be glad to continue the conversation with you.
 

Sapidus

Well-Known Member
Let's say that you are correct (you're not, but let's pretend). For whom will the prices skyrocket? It won't be for the people getting lower quality insurance - that will be dirt cheap! Win. It won't be for the bulk of people on standard plans - it was cheaper (by leaps and bounds) before the ACA was passed, so it's likely to lower back if non-life-threatening items are no longer a requirement, and men don't have to take out insurance against their potential pregnancies. The elderly are mandated to be on Medicare.

That leaves (you guessed it) pre-existing conditions - those with HUGE cost. They'll have to "pay their fair share". Meanwhile, the 85+% who were happier before can go back to being happier. And, people are no longer losing as much liberty (just a little, not more).

Sounds like a win to me.

But, if you can find in the Constitution where the federal government has the right to mandate purchasing a product for existing, I'll be glad to continue the conversation with you.

You should do some research before you flap your gums. I also think most people who voted for Trump didn’t realize they would be the ones most effected.


It’s not only preexisting conditions.

This disproportionally will effect the poor and middle class.

But I forgot your party only cares about the rich


“Rates already were rising in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s decision. Insurance regulators in Arkansas, another state that went for Trump, approved premium increases on Friday ranging from 14 percent to nearly 25 percent for plans offered through the insurance marketplace. Had federal cost-sharing been retained, the premiums would have risen by no more than 10 percent.

In Mississippi, another state Trump won, an estimated 80 percent of consumers who buy coverage on the insurance exchange benefit from the deductible and co-pay discounts, the highest percentage of any state. Premiums there will increase by 47 percent next year, after regulators assumed Trump would end the cost-sharing payments.”

https://apnews.com/cd3fb39ebc2d47a8...n=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP
 
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Ken King

A little rusty but not crusty
PREMO Member
You should do some research before you flap your gums. I also think most people who voted for Trump didn’t realize they would be the ones most effected.


It’s not only preexisting conditions.

This disproportionally will effect the poor and middle class.

But I forgot your party only cares about the rich


“Rates already were rising in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s decision. Insurance regulators in Arkansas, another state that went for Trump, approved premium increases on Friday ranging from 14 percent to nearly 25 percent for plans offered through the insurance marketplace. Had federal cost-sharing been retained, the premiums would have risen by no more than 10 percent.

In Mississippi, another state Trump won, an estimated 80 percent of consumers who buy coverage on the insurance exchange benefit from the deductible and co-pay discounts, the highest percentage of any state. Premiums there will increase by 47 percent next year, after regulators assumed Trump would end the cost-sharing payments.”

https://apnews.com/cd3fb39ebc2d47a8...n=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

To my knowledge there has never been any appropriations approved for those "cost-sharing payments". Unless appropriated by Congress any continuation of payments would be a continuation of illegal activity by the executive.
 

terbear1225

Well-Known Member
This will guarantee people with preexisting conditions will have little or no choice as to how much they pay. Do you know that health care bills are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy in this county?

Trump is in business for business interests in this country. This absolutely going to make make prices sky rocket with the illusion that you will be able to buy short term crappy insurance that isn't gonna do jack to save you money when the bill comes

If this is the case, maybe we should address why the hell medical care costs so much to begin with?
 

Sapidus

Well-Known Member
If this is the case, maybe we should address why the hell medical care costs so much to begin with?

That’s a great idea but we also need to face the reality that what Trump Is doing is going to harm a Lot of people not only financially but possibly result in deaths.
 

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
To my knowledge there has never been any appropriations approved for those "cost-sharing payments". Unless appropriated by Congress any continuation of payments would be a continuation of illegal activity by the executive.

:yay:
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) today issued the following statement regarding the Trump administration’s determination that certain payments under Obamacare have no valid appropriation: “Under our Constitution, the power of the purse belongs to Congress, not the executive branch. It was in defense of this foundational principle that the House, under the leadership of former speaker John Boehner, voted in 2014 to challenge the constitutionality of spending by the Obama administration that was never approved by Congress. The House was validated last year when a federal court ruled that the Obama administration had indeed been making unauthorized and therefore illegal payments through Obamacare. Today’s decision by the Trump administration to end the appeal of that ruling preserves a monumental affirmation of Congress’s authority and the separation of powers. Obamacare has proven itself to be a fatally flawed law, and the House will continue to work with Trump administration to provide the American people a better system.”
http://www.speaker.gov/press-releas...rations-decision-regarding-obamacare-payments
 

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
That’s a great idea but we also need to face the reality that what Trump Is doing is going to harm a Lot of people not only financially but possibly result in deaths.

Your accusations are a complete farce. Better go back and re-read this EO, and stop regurgitating the progbot talking points.
 

littlelady

God bless the USA
If this is the case, maybe we should address why the hell medical care costs so much to begin with?

We chose the cheapest plan after hub retired early due to a total meltdown of the company he worked for; kind of like our gov. We are both healthy at the moment, so chose just catastrophic with lowest premium. No doc in our area takes Kaiser Permanente. So, we will lose our docs, and the closest docs that they assigned us are in Kensington; no choice there. We live in Olney, now. We are waiting to see how Trump's EO might change the insurance dilemma. We received a notice that new enrollment is next month. Sorry, but this health insurance thing has turned into a crock of poop. What really makes me mad is the Americans that, actually worked their butts off all their lives, are the ones being screwed.
 
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