Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in part on a promise to get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something better. Then all he did in his first term was talk big about his plans while undermining Obamacare at every opportunity, threatening the health care of millions. Now in his fourth year, Trump still has no plan to replace it.
Yet last week, he was once again promising he’ll “be doing a health care plan very strongly, and protect people with preexisting conditions” — as soon as he’s reelected. He fooled Americans once with false promises. He must not get away with it again.
For a decade now, Republicans have targeted the Affordable Care Act, but when the GOP held the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2017 and 2018, they found they couldn’t kill it outright by legislation. Yanking away health care coverage from tens of millions of Americans, it turns out, is a politically daunting endeavor.
So Trump and his party have instead been trying to sabotage the program. Congress repealed the individual mandate requiring those who don’t carry insurance to pay a fine, a key incentive to bolstering the coverage pool. The administration cut funding for Obamacare enrollment publicity, allowed expansion of low-quality plans that don’t meet Obamacare standards, and in April refused to create a special enrollment period for the pandemic.
Most shamefully, Republican state attorneys general, including Missouri’s Josh Hawley — now the state’s junior senator — filed a federal lawsuit seeking to kill the entire program. So much for the supposed Republican aversion to “legislating from the bench.” If the suit succeeds, millions of Americans with preexisting medical conditions like diabetes and cancer would once again become virtually uninsurable.
Republican leaders are clear: They don’t believe access to affordable health care is a fundamental right. But they can’t say that, because polls show most Americans disagree. “Repeal and replace” was the GOP mantra for years, although what Republicans really meant was repeal and go home. The party has never offered a viable replacement. Nor has Trump, even after winning office in part on his promise that he would.
It took special nerve for Trump to look right at a woman with a preexisting medical condition during a town hall-style meeting last week and tout the “wonderful plan” and that he would be “putting it in fairly soon. … I have it all ready, and it’s a much better plan for you,” he told her, vowing that it would not “hurt preexisting conditions.”
To be clear: The administration has formally asked the Supreme Court to end protections for preexisting conditions, by finishing off Obamacare, and has offered nothing in its place. It’s time for voters to call his bluff.
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
