EDITORIAL: Dismantling health care: ‘Repeal and replace’ failed, but systematic undermining has taken its place
Even as millions of Americans were gaining access to care, the slogan somehow continued to resonate among voters on the right. By 2017, when
That hasn't deterred the effort, however. Trump's done his best since taking office to undermine the system, all the while claiming to anyone who'll listen that it's failing on its own.
He's undermined the law by signing orders to allow federal agencies to ignore the individual mandate imposed by the ACA and the mandate for small businesses to offer employees health coverage. Those acts were cemented in the Republican tax bill Trump signed last December. That alone could cause the dropping of coverage by millions of healthier Americans, leading insurers to raise rates on those who do participate or to back out of the exchanges altogether, ensuring less competition and fewer options.
Trump also cut off federal cost-sharing reduction payments -- funds put in place under the ACA to ensure health insurers don't lose too much money providing marketplace plans. Just to make sure fewer people sign up for the plans, he cut back both the hours for signing up and the budget for advertising to tell people when and how to sign up. And his administration has enabled states to erect high hurdles, such as
He recently cut health care consumer outreach and enrollment assistance again, by more than 70 percent. And he's loosened regulations on short-term insurance plans -- which don't have to adhere to the Affordable Care Act's consumer protections.
It will continue.
What the Affordable Care Act has done is to lower the cost of health care to all by making sure those who need care the most get it before they require the most-costly procedures. Studies have indicated preventive care is the least-expensive care and that people who regularly receive such simple screenings as blood-pressure and vision exams can head off major -- and more expensive -- damage down the road.
That's a laudable goal our nation's leaders ought to be trying to improve. But thus far, lacking the ability to repeal the ACA and unable to produce anything to replace it, they've settled for systematically dismantling it, endangering the health of millions of Americans in the process.
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