Polls continue to show the health care issue, despite being crowded out of the news by immigration, tariffs, North Korea and Trump administration scandals, remains near the top of voters’ concerns. Republican candidates would be wise not to underestimate the power of this issue to sway votes this fall. Among major items of concern:
Polls continue to show the health care issue, despite being crowded out of the news by immigration, tariffs, North Korea and Trump administration scandals, remains near the top of voters’ concerns. Republican candidates would be wise not to underestimate the power of this issue to sway votes this fall. Among major items of concern:
• Two weeks ago, the Trump administration’s Justice Department told a federal court it would no longer enforce key parts of the Affordable Care Act that require insurance companies selling plans on the Healthcare.gov marketplace to cover consumers with pre-existing conditions. This decision also could affect the 160 million Americans covered by employer-sponsored health care plans, who could be free to resume charging higher premiums or imposing waiting periods for coverage of pre-existing conditions.
• The administration is rolling out new “association health plans” for individuals and small businesses. These policies would be cheaper and less comprehensive than current plans and might eliminate coverage for things such as maternity services, emergency care or mental health treatment.
• In part because President Donald Trump ended cost-sharing payments to insurers selling Obamacare policies to lower-income customers, the costs for those policies have risen dramatically in most states.
Polls consistently show Obamacare is viewed favorably by most Americans. One of Obamacare’s most popular provisions says that the 52 million non-elderly American adults with pre-existing conditions can’t be denied coverage or charged more for it.
However, the tax-cut bill enacted in December eliminated Obamacare’s penalty for failing to purchase health insurance. The end of the so-called individual mandate caused 20 Republican state attorneys general to again challenge the overall constitutionality of Obamacare’s consumer protections, including coverage of pre-existing conditions.
A final court decision on the challenge could be years away. In the meantime, voters with pre-existing conditions might want to factor it into their decisions in November.
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
