The text of Republican health care reform bill to replace Obamacare was released Monday night. Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump offered a full-throated endorsement of the legislation put forward by House Republican leadership. The bill is out for review, President Trump tweeted. Well, the CR review is in, and the bill is terrible. For the last six years, the primary complaints of Republicans against Obamacare were the unconstitutional individual mandate and the insurance regulations that are driving up the cost of premiums.
Neither of those problems are addressed in the RINOcare bill. A Republican version of the individual mandate remains in place to penalize individuals who forgo insurance coverage. The insurance regulations that require insurance companies to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions and the community rating regulation the requirement that insurance companies charge even the sickest applicants the price of the community are still there. These regulations are the reason health insurance premiums keep going up every year.
So the structural problems of Obamacare that make health insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans are enshrined in the replacement bill proposed by House Republicans.
Will these problems be addressed? According to the president, there will be a phase two and a phase three of Republican health care reform.
The problem is that the Republican Party promised a full repeal of Obamacare in every election season for the last six years. They won the elections in 2010, 2014, and 2016 running on full repeal. This current bill is not full repeal.
It doesnt matter what additional changes they make to their replacement plan. If Republicans keep the structural problems of Obamacare in place, as they have done in this draft, they will not make health insurance affordable. Breaking a promise of that magnitude will have far-reaching political consequences that will knock Republicans out of power. Health care will likely be handed back to the Democrat Party and their single-payer socialist schemes.
Conservative Reviews Daniel Horowitz was clear when he wrote Its time for President Trump to lead, or this is over.
Here is a sports analogy to make this point even more clear. Obamacare is the basketball. The GOP is the team wearing the green jerseys. President Donald Trump needs to be the coach.
Right now, in this pivotal moment, President Trump is not being the coach
Poster Comment:
Its not single payer.
The original at the link includes tweets like :
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster - is imploding fast! 7:13 AM - 7 Mar 2017