Donald Trump’s health reform plan consists of repealing Obamacare and upholding Obamacare all at the same time.
His seven pillars of health reform that will “Make America Great Again” include the following principles – some of which are supported by those favoring market-oriented changes to our nation’s status quo:
- Repeal Obamacare.
- Buy insurance across state lines.
- Exclude all health insurance premiums from taxation, not just employer-sponsored insurance.
- Allow individuals to use Health Savings Accounts. (20 million policyholders are already benefiting from HSAs…)
- Require price transparency from all healthcare providers.
- Block-grant Medicaid to the states.
- Allow U.S. consumers to buy drugs from overseas.
Yet Trump has mentioned numerous times to keep intact Obamacare’s individual mandate. He wants to maintain Obamacare’s policy that insurance companies must accept all policyholders, including those with pre-existing conditions.
According to Avik Roy, Forbes Opinion Editor, Trump’s plan, “has the look and feel of something that a 22-year-old congressional staffer would write for a backbencher based on a cursory review of Wikipedia.” You can read more about his thoughts on the proposal here.
Michael Cannon, one of the foremost experts on health care policy at the Libertarian Cato Institute, says, “this isn’t a health reform plan. It’s a campaign operative copying and pasting a bunch of stuff from the around the web, without knowing what it means or even realizing that he’s describing current law. It shows Trump is as unserious about reforming health care as ever. He doesn’t have a plan. He has paroxysms.”
