Trump Issues Health ‘Guarantee,’ Sidesteps Affordability Concerns
President tells CBS that pre-existing conditions are covered in coming bill
By
Louise Radnofsky
Updated April 30, 2017 4:57 p.m. ET trump-issues-health-guarantee-sidesteps-affordability-concerns-1493583169
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump insisted that Republicans’ health-care plans would maintain a guarantee of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions—but sidestepped the thornier debate over whether proposed changes could raise insurance costs for sick people to the point where coverage is unaffordable.
“Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I mandate it. I said, ‘Has to be,’ ” Mr. Trump told CBS ’s “Face the Nation” Sunday when pressed on whether the GOP health-care plan would maintain one of the most popular aspects of the Affordable Care Act, which Mr. Trump has vowed to scrap.
Interviewer John Dickerson repeatedly asked Mr. Trump if the Republican plan—being negotiated among GOP lawmakers in the House—would guarantee coverage to people in every state, regardless of their medical history. Mr. Trump said that it would, but he didn’t directly address the possibility that some states could opt to charge more to people with such pre-existing conditions, the current sticking point in negotiations between GOP centrists and conservatives.
“We have now pre-existing conditions in the bill. We have—we’ve set up a pool for the pre-existing conditions so that the premiums can be allowed to fall,” Mr. Trump said, referring to provisions to offer subsidized insurance pools for people with especially costly health needs.
When asked by Mr. Dickerson to respond to critics who said the changes “could effectively make coverage completely unaffordable for people,” Mr. Trump said that the evolving Republican plan would leave people better off than they would be under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“Forget about unaffordable,” the president said. “What’s unaffordable is Obamacare.”
Republicans are wrestling with the future of the health law’s provisions guaranteeing the sale of insurance to everyone, at similar prices, regardless of their risk. Those provisions have been widely popular in principle, though they have also caused surges in premium for many healthy people who benefited from low prices before the law was passed.
An earlier version of the GOP health plan collapsed in March after a conservative faction withheld its support, saying it didn’t go far enough in uprooting the ACA’s insurance requirements, which they say have driven up premiums for healthier people. At the same time, more centrist lawmakers have been reluctant to support any planthat erases the ACA’s expanded coverage and patient protections.
The latest iteration of the GOP plan still requires insurers to sell coverage to everyone regardless of their medical history and any pre-existing conditions, in every state. But under an amendment by centrist Rep. Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, states could allow insurers to charge riskier people if they had previously gone without coverage for more than 63 days in the previous 12 months.
States would have to apply to Washington for waivers that would allow insurers within their borders to change pricing and skip on covering a generous range of benefits. States would also likely have to provide ways for people priced out of insurance to get coverage through subsidized “pools,” though those have proven costlier than expected in the past.
Mr. Trump’s arguments in support of the compromise amendment were echoed by Vice President Mike Pence, in a separate interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
“We’re also keeping our promises to protect people who have pre-existing conditions,” Mr. Pence said. “You subsidize that so that it is affordable to those individuals. And so, you’re guaranteeing coverage for pre-existing conditions.”
Some of Mr. MacArthur’s fellow centrist House Republicans are still weighing whether his amendment does enough to meet their concerns over providing adequate coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Critics of the GOP law have also said that guaranteeing people a right to buy insurance without capping premiums or mandating benefits is meaningless. |
