Climate Change, Health Care and Trump’s Presidency

The Affordable Care Act exchanges opened up at the end of 2014, which gave all Americans the opportunity to purchase health insurance and meet the individual mandate. But what Republicans have said is that if they roll back something like the Medicaid coverage, they will replace it with something that they would argue is better. Finding a replacement is harder.

“To Californians who are newly shopping or re-evaluating – we stand ready to fight to keep what is working in this state”, he said.

LASZEWSKI: What is really unfortunate about the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is Democrats rammed it through in 2010 over the objections of the Republicans.

In an interview on 60 Minutes Sunday, Trump said he wanted to make sure that people with pre-existing conditions remain covered and that despite the cost, he will “very much try and keep” coverage for “children living with their parents for an extended period”.

Jeff Heatherington, CEO of Portland-based Family Care, one of 16 organizations around the state providing for Oregon Health Plan members, echoes other health care officials in saying it’s unlikely Republicans will strip millions of Americans of their health care.

If we really want health to be more accessible, we must look beyond insurance companies.

Sign-ups for health insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act continued to surge this month amid anxiety about the future of the law under President-elect Donald Trump, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Whatever Republicans decide on may take years to implement.

“The answer is to be determined”, Brady told reporters this week.

Trump has vowed to preserve and modernize Medicare, but congressional Republican leaders want to turn it over to private insurers.

It’s too soon to say, but the resulting budget pressures could affect how the state administers the Oregon Health Plan. However, they left millions of people out, the coverage was unaffordable and inadequate, and they were not cost-effective. Conservatives in Congress and around Washington have put forth several alternatives. He analyzed the election to find out which House members won their seats by a slim majority and who also have a lot of people in their districts whose health care or jobs depend on Obamacare. Less than 3 percent of residents are uninsured here, the lowest uninsured rate in the nation. His prediction was that the Republicans would allow the exchange and subsidies to continue for 2017 and perhaps 2018 and then pull the plug on them, with nothing to replace them, thereby intentionally creating a crisis that would have to be solved with their “free-market” solutions. Premiums are rising rapidly.

At a well-attended meeting Thursday, the Covered California board said it is continuing to push ahead with open enrollment, which ends January 31 for people changing their coverage within the exchange or gaining coverage for the first time, despite the program’s uncertain future.

The figures include about 250,000 new consumers and more than 750,000 current enrollees renewing their coverage.

Moreover, while Trump says he would protect those with pre-existing conditions, panel members on Thursday said they anxious that he is relying on a preliminary alternative health care plan written by House Speaker Paul Ryan that critics say comes with major pitfalls. Eliminate the individual mandate, and especially the limitation requiring comprehensive policies, and you eliminate the wealth transfer necessary to subsidize older and less healthy consumers.

Republican ideas to let insurers sell across state lines and to stop trial lawyers from filing large medical malpractice suits, for example, would accomplish “about 2 percent” of what they claim they want, says Brown, the Ohio Democrat and an ardent Obamacare supporter.