Rep. Tom Price Named HHS Secretary Under Trump Administration

While President-elect Trump and Republican members of Congress work on an Obamacare replacement, the Kaiser poll finds that numerous law’s major provisions continue to be quite popular, even across party lines.

With a Trump presidency on the horizon, it’s the ideal time to evaluate how the country’s health care situation has shifted through the Obama years.

Mr. Price met with the President-elect last week at Trump tower and many believed he would be involved in the new Trump administration in some way.

Then Krauthammer, a physician himself, addressed the problems that will more-than-likely be encountered in dismantling and replacing the Affordable Care Act.

Ms Verma helped Mr Pence, the IN governor, add conservative pieces to Medicaid coverage for the state’s poor by requiring beneficiaries to make contributions to health savings accounts. But debate is already brewing within the G.O.P. about what comes next.

Elected to the House from the Atlanta’s northern suburbs in 2004, the staunch, anti-abortion congressman is also one of the fiercest opponents of the Affordable Care Act.

GOP lawmakers are planning to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, in 2017 but delay the the rollback by up to three years to draft a replacement plan, according to Politico. But getting Democrats to sign on to the aggressive plans favored by many conservatives, which would make basic medical care unaffordable for millions of the now insured, Republicans need more leverage.

However, Trump has said a replacement plan must be in place in advance of people losing their Obamacare coverage.

“Republicans want to repeal and replace the ACA and enact major Medicare and Medicaid reforms. People are being, understandably cautious, to make sure nobody’s dropped through the cracks”, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn told Politico.

Republicans have long argued that taxpayer funds allocated for Medicare recipients are being usurped to pay for federal subsidies that are granted to Obamacare recipients who can not afford to pay their monthly health insurance premiums.

To be fair, they only had six years. Republicans want to trim, or even eliminate, the list of essential treatments that insurance must cover. “I’m from a state that has an expanded Medicaid population that I am very concerned about”, Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator from West Virginia, told Talking Points Memo. That process is further complicated by the fact that Republicans have never released a comprehensive proposal for how they would replace the system. With a per-capita cap, the federal contribution would rise as more people are added to the program.

Federal block grants to states predicated in part on establishing high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions. So we need a transition. “So I think the Republicans, in the sober, cold nights when they sit around after their 57th repeal vote, say, ‘What in the world would we do if we repealed it?’ They don’t have a plan”.

Now as President-elect Donald Trump picks Rep. Dr. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), taxpayers and all citizens see a sign of regulatory and tax relief from Obamacare.

There was a time when a more bipartisan approach might have allowed both parties to share credit for health care reform.

And 80% of Americans favor the government subsidies provided through the law to help low- and moderate-income people buy health insurance on the marketplaces.