Former Obama administration officials Gene Sperling and Chris Jennings have a primer on the various ways the Trump regime can work to undermine Obamacare and how to determine if he's laying the groundwork for destroying it from within. The problem for Trump, they argue, is that if he is "seen as purposely seeking to destroy the ACA to try to make his claims come true, he will destroy the trust he needs for any chance at future bipartisan legislation." So he's going to need to be sneaky about it. If that's possible.
First off, they say to watch for what the regime does with the pending lawsuit House Republicans brought several years ago to halt federal subsidies to insurers to help lower-income individuals pay their deductibles and copays. Two powerful House Republicans now say that Congress should appropriate the money for those subsidies. The easier move—since passing anything to make Obamacare work is going to require Democratic votes—for House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump would be to withdraw the suit. So Sperling and Jennings say that the "critical test for the president will be whether he can work with the Congress to move to withdraw the House's lawsuit and ensure ongoing funding for cost-sharing, and do so before the court-imposed deadline of May 22.
The second big question is whether Trump will enforce the individual mandate, the core of the law which requires everyone who can afford it to have insurance or pay a penalty.
Trump’s first executive order, though, asked for all parts of his government to “minimize the burdens” of the ACA, which many feared could result in a refusal to enforce the individual mandate. […] So while Trump’s executive order did not by itself weaken the mandate, it did send a message that the tax penalties used to incentivize mandatory health coverage are not likely to be strictly enforced. The second major test to determine whether the President is choosing sabotage over governing will be if he directs his administration not to enforce the current individual-mandate provisions within the ACA.
Related to the mandate, the next thing to watch for is whether the Trump regime will make any attempt to encourage enrollment, or whether he'll discourage it. We saw the first attempt at discouraging enrollment when the regime tried to cancel the advertising the Obama administration already had in place for the last few weeks of open enrollment. "If the Trump administration declines to match the effort and resources the Obama administration dedicated (and, instead, substantially reduces them), it will be a clear indication that it is choosing sabotage over governing."
from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2nIlP8I
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