President-Elect Donald Trump told reporters over the weekend that he will soon unveil the details of his plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, during his presidency, according to The Washington Post.
Part of his plan is to apparently provide healthcare coverage for all eligible Americans. Donald Trump, socialist to end all socialists. Who knew?
Trump emphasized the stripping of protections for pharmaceutical companies and demands he will make of these companies to lower the costs of medications. Trump said that a result of this change will be the lowering of healthcare costs in general.
Throughout the interview, Trump wasn't forthcoming about the details of his healthcare reform plan. He avoided answering questions about how he plans to sell his plan to the Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as the particular operations of his plan and how exactly he intends to make improvements to the current government healthcare system.
The "Unaffordable" Care Act will soon be history!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2017
In response to questioning of how his policies would affect the economy, Trump was his usual well-mannered, articulate self. “I don’t care. I want to do it right or not at all,” he said.
Trump’s ambitious plans to overhaul the healthcare system are slated to take effect during the first year of his presidency, while the Affordable Care Act took much longer than that to put into place.
According to CNN, Republican leaders in government are disagreeing about how best to proceed with their desired healthcare reform plans. "Some want to slow down the repeal effort until a replacement plan is unveiled," CNN reports. No kidding!
Meanwhile, a report by the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday asserted that repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act while keeping the parts that people like (such as not discriminating based on preexisting conditions) could mean 18 million people losing their insurance, according to The New York Times. It would also mean that people's insurance premiums, or the amount they have to pay for insurance, could double. The report is disheartening, because repealing only part of Obamacare is exactly what Republicans, and Trump himself, have proposed doing.
If the lack of detail Trump is giving the press is at all indicative of the lack of detail in his actual plans, Trump will have to significantly reevaluate his timeline. Hey—maybe he won’t actually be able to implement anything! If only.