Bypassing Congress, Trump Signs Executive Order to Cripple Obamacare

It also lifts limits on short-term health insurance plans.

The order is reportedly just the beginning of President Permanent Temper-tantrum Von f***Face’s plan which complete undermines ObamaCare markets by offering cheaper plans with less coverage. Twenty one million more Americans would be uninsured if Obamacare is repealed and replaced by the Graham-Cassidy plan, according to a Brookings Institution study released earlier that day.

Pence sprung into action and swiftly walked over to Trump, and turned him back toward the wooden desk, where the order was waiting to be signed.

Court challenges to Trump’s new order are expected.

He has also tasked various secretaries to look into “Health Reimbursement Accounts” that would assist small business owners in reimbursing their employees for healthcare expenses. Health care experts expect HRAs will be allowed to pay premiums for individual market policies. The White House also said that it gives employers more leverage to negotiate with insurance companies in purchasing health insurance plans for employees. And administration officials said Thursday that new associations would be subject to some of the ACA’s health insurance requirements. In return, the healthy have the security of knowing that, if the need arises, they too will be taken care of.

And obviously a spike in rates of ObamaCare would push more people off of it and that’s exactly what the president, who ran on a platform that included repealing and replacing ObamaCare wants. And it has limited the amount of time people have to sign up for insurance in the individual market.

Obamacare’s underlying logic is that covering people who get sick or are likely to become sick, due to their age or preexisting conditions, requires a big insurance pool with enough healthy people to spread risk evenly. These plans would be able to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions and offer less-generous coverage than what the ACA requires. Healthy people in the pool offset the costs of sicker people, making insurance feasible for those with preexisting health problems.

Employers participating in these plans would not be allowed to exclude employees or develop premiums based on health conditions, the administration said.

That could leave behind a disproportionately sicker, and thus more expensive, group that needs the protections of Obamacare, driving up prices for those still on the small group or individual markets. Experts also questioned whether Trump has the legal authority to expand association health plans.

Although ERISA allows associations to qualify as employers and manage large-group plans, federal regulators have generally required that members of such associations have a high degree of common interest beyond buying insurance, said Allison Hoffman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.