Trump Announces End of Obamacare
After many failed attempts to repeal Obamacare, Trump has opted for a new strategy to end the controversial health care program.
Trump said, “Republicans are meeting with Democrats because of what I did with the CSRs, because I cut off the gravy train. If I didn’t cut the CSRs, they wouldn’t be meeting. They’d be having lunch and enjoying themselves, alright? They’re right now having emergency meetings to get a short-term fix of health care, where premiums don’t have to double and triple every year like they’ve been doing under Obamacare. Because Obamacare is finished. It’s dead. It’s gone. It’s no longer — don’t — you shouldn’t even mention it. It’s gone. There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore.”
He later added, “I do believe we’ll have a short-term fix. Because, I think, the Democrats will be blamed for the mess. This is an Obamacare mess. When the premiums go up, that has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that we had poor health care, delivered poorly, written poorly, approved by the Democrats. It was called Obamacare. But I think we’ll have a short-term fix, and then we’ll have a long-term fix and that will take place probably in March or April. We will have a very solid vote. It’ll be probably 100% Republican, no Democrats. But most people know that that’s going to be a very good form of health insurance.”
To be clear, Trump hasn't officially ended Obamacare.
Instead, he cut the cost-sharing reductions, which were federal subsidies designed to keep premium costs low. But since CSR funds were not officially appropriated by Congress, Trump used their cancellation as an excuse to gut the Affordable Care Act. It's now likely that premiums will skyrocket, and Obamacare will collapse.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about this, to be honest. While the Affordable Care Act is far from perfect, I’m apprehensive about its replacement – assuming there is one – being significantly better.
