Since his campaign, Mr. Trump has clearly been against the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act gives federal funding to insurer companies so that eligible customers can pay less money out of their pocket for expenses such as copayments or deductibles. As an opponent of Obamacare, President Trump had made plans to decrease and eventually stop funding towards the plan. Many health analysts predicted that insurance premiums would go up and that such plans from Mr. Trump discouraged insurance companies to not participate in Obamacare markets in 2018. The republican House of Representatives claimed that the federal reimbursements were not actually supported by congressional appropriation. A judge actually agreed with the House but suspended the claims after the Obama Administration appealed.
Recently, the fundings for Obamacare ran out on September 1st. The Trump administration only promised to cut funding by 41 percent, but the complete lack of funding has caused layoffs and a decrease in outreach programs. The Trump administration stated that they would cut the budget for people who weren’t able to meet their enrollment goal, but still give them a base of $10,000. However, in the past week or so, several companies have received no information about the budget, leading to job losses and some companies having to run on donations.
Connection to class topics: Clearly, the situation with the judge backing out on her statement when the administration appealed exemplifies the weaker nature of the judicial branch compared to the legislative and executive branches. Also, President Trump having the power behind Obamacare and its budget shows how the executive branch has more powers behind carrying out the law than any other branch of government.
Questions:
- Looking at the current situation, do you think the Obamacare powers should still be in the hands of Trump?
- Why do you believe that these companies have not received information on budgets?
- Why do you think Trump would’ve still cut budgets to Obamacare considering the possible rise of insurance premiums and insurance companies dropping out of the Obamacare markets?
1 comment:
Back when Trump was making his campaign promises, he had proposed expand tax-free health saving accounts, giving people tax credits to help affordability, and block-granting Medicaid. As to why the companies have not received any information regarding the budget of the new act that will eventually replace the Affordable Care Act, it is probably because the Trump administration has not come up with a solution that would fulfill most of his promise regarding health care, and that Trump had said that the transition would take about two years. Although the benefits of the new health care plan is more appealing than the Affordable Care Act in theory, it is still rather low in its practicality. In regards to why Trump still plans on cut the budget of the Affordable Care Act, it is because that he is relying on the "growth" in which he argues will be generated from the tax cut. Although there isn't much we can do about Trump cutting the budget of the medicaid since he is the president, it is still unlikely that the Affordable Care Act would be completely removed due to the fact that the cut is unpopular among both parties and that Republicans don't have 60 seats in the Senate.
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