Trump Dodges When Confronted With Dark Detail of His Health Care Plan
J.D. Vance attempted to fill in the gaps of Donald Trump’s health care “concepts of a plan” over the weekend, but buried behind his pledge to protect those with preexisting conditions came the promise of policies that would actually jeopardize their access to care. And Trump is doing nothing to deny that this would be the case.During an appearance Sunday on Meet the Press, NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Vance if he could assemble the breadcrumbs Trump has offered into an actual policy plan. Vance responded by pointing out that during Trump’s first term, he chose to build on the Affordable Care Act rather than destroy it.The Ohio senator explained that this time around, Trump’s elusive health care plan was “actually quite straightforward” and said that the former president would “want to make sure that preexisting coverage conditions are covered.” Vance also said Trump would “want to implement some deregulatory agenda so that people can choose a health care plan that fits them.” He criticized a “one-size-fits-all approach” that sorted people “into the same risk pools.”However, the kind of deregulation Vance refers to is exactly the kind that would make it practically impossible for those with preexisting conditions to get affordable health care, according to Semafor.When asked for clarification on this position, Trump campaign spokesman Brian Hughes declined to say whether Trump agreed with moving people with preexisting conditions into different “risk pools.”“Senator Vance and President Trump share the underlying principles of using more choice in the marketplace and efficiency as tools for better, more affordable health care,” Hughes told Semafor.In 2017, the GOP-led House passed the American Health Care Act, which included the proposal for a waiver that would do just what Vance had described: allow “insurers to set premiums on the basis of an individual’s health status,” including preexisting conditions. The opposite of a “one-size-fits-all” solution, right? There’s only one problem: The Congressional House Budget Office issued a report analyzing the bill and predicting that the waiver would result in those with preexisting conditions inevitably being priced out of their insurance. The report estimated that as a result of those waivers, “community-rated premiums would rise over time, and people who are less healthy (including those with preexisting or newly acquired medical conditions) would ultimately be unable to purchase comprehensive nongroup health insurance at premiums comparable to those under current law, if they could purchase it at all.“As a result, the nongroup markets in those states would become unstable for people with higher-than-average expected health care costs,” the report said. “That instability would cause some people who would have been insured in the nongroup market under current law to be uninsured.”With the waiver, healthier people could opt for non-group insurance plans, which would remain inexpensive, while less healthy people were pushed toward pricey community-rated options. The report estimated that the price of community-rated options would rise until “those premiums would be so high in some areas that the plans would have no enrollment.”The Senate rejected that waiver, and Trump was ultimately unable to make any substantial changes to the ACA. However, Vance has made clear that Trump would be willing to make the same mistakes all over again should he make it to the White House a second time.It’s not yet clear what exactly the former president’s plan is. When asked, Trump said he didn’t know because he’s “not president right now.” But his refusal to flat-out reject the concept of separate risk pools should be a huge red flag.
J.D. Vance attempted to fill in the gaps of Donald Trump’s health care “concepts of a plan” over the weekend, but buried behind his pledge to protect those with preexisting conditions came the promise of policies that would actually jeopardize their access to care. And Trump is doing nothing to deny that this would be the case.
During an appearance Sunday on Meet the Press, NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Vance if he could assemble the breadcrumbs Trump has offered into an actual policy plan. Vance responded by pointing out that during Trump’s first term, he chose to build on the Affordable Care Act rather than destroy it.
The Ohio senator explained that this time around, Trump’s elusive health care plan was “actually quite straightforward” and said that the former president would “want to make sure that preexisting coverage conditions are covered.” Vance also said Trump would “want to implement some deregulatory agenda so that people can choose a health care plan that fits them.” He criticized a “one-size-fits-all approach” that sorted people “into the same risk pools.”
However, the kind of deregulation Vance refers to is exactly the kind that would make it practically impossible for those with preexisting conditions to get affordable health care, according to Semafor.
When asked for clarification on this position, Trump campaign spokesman Brian Hughes declined to say whether Trump agreed with moving people with preexisting conditions into different “risk pools.”
“Senator Vance and President Trump share the underlying principles of using more choice in the marketplace and efficiency as tools for better, more affordable health care,” Hughes told Semafor.
In 2017, the GOP-led House passed the American Health Care Act, which included the proposal for a waiver that would do just what Vance had described: allow “insurers to set premiums on the basis of an individual’s health status,” including preexisting conditions. The opposite of a “one-size-fits-all” solution, right?
There’s only one problem: The Congressional House Budget Office issued a report analyzing the bill and predicting that the waiver would result in those with preexisting conditions inevitably being priced out of their insurance.
The report estimated that as a result of those waivers, “community-rated premiums would rise over time, and people who are less healthy (including those with preexisting or newly acquired medical conditions) would ultimately be unable to purchase comprehensive nongroup health insurance at premiums comparable to those under current law, if they could purchase it at all.
“As a result, the nongroup markets in those states would become unstable for people with higher-than-average expected health care costs,” the report said. “That instability would cause some people who would have been insured in the nongroup market under current law to be uninsured.”
With the waiver, healthier people could opt for non-group insurance plans, which would remain inexpensive, while less healthy people were pushed toward pricey community-rated options. The report estimated that the price of community-rated options would rise until “those premiums would be so high in some areas that the plans would have no enrollment.”
The Senate rejected that waiver, and Trump was ultimately unable to make any substantial changes to the ACA. However, Vance has made clear that Trump would be willing to make the same mistakes all over again should he make it to the White House a second time.
It’s not yet clear what exactly the former president’s plan is. When asked, Trump said he didn’t know because he’s “not president right now.” But his refusal to flat-out reject the concept of separate risk pools should be a huge red flag.
