Summary: Trump signed an executive order to increase competition in the healthcare market.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which CNN said will begin the process of dismantling the Affordable Care Act (ACA). When campaigning for his current role as 45, Trump vowed to end the ACA, better known as Obamacare, and he said that his order will bring affordable health insurance to more people.C
Trump’s latest order tasks his administration with developing policies that will increase competition in the healthcare market, which will presumably increase the quality of care and lower prices. Opponents of this initiative said that the order may destabilize Obamacare and remove younger and healthier Americans from participating in exchanges.
Trump said he signed the order because it would give millions of Americans relief from Obamacare.
“[The executive order will] cost the United States government virtually nothing and people will have great, great health care. And when I say people, I mean by the millions and millions,” Trump said at his press conference from the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
Trump added that the measures “should have been done a long time ago, and could have been done a long time ago.”
According to CNN, the executive order “is directing the Labor Department to study how to make it easier for small businesses, and possibly individuals, to join together and buy health insurance through nationwide association health plans, a senior administration official said Thursday. The department could give employers in the same industries more flexibility to offer group coverage across state lines, providing them with a broader range of policies at lower rates.”
The order will also allow consumers to buy short-term policies and broaden the ability of employers to give employees money to buy their own health insurance. The changes are expected to occur in six months or more.
Critics worry that this order will allow plans to be sold with lower premiums but skimpy benefits. Additionally, the lower premiums may attract healthy, young people who will abandon Obamacare and thus cripple it.
The topic of healthcare has been a major one in Congress, and Republicans and Democrats have not been able to come to an agreement on what to do with it. Since no bill has passed, Trump cannot fully repeal and replace Obamacare, but his executive order is a step to reform it by broadening the way it is implemented.
The order has already drawn support from high-profile Republicans like Rand Paul, and it has been met with disapproval from Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“Having failed to repeal the #ACA in Congress, @POTUS is using a wrecking ball to singlehandedly rip apart & sabotage our healthcare system,” Schumer wrote.
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