Trump Says Plan Provides Insurance For Everybody

What, exactly, does this mean?

(Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Obama’s signature health-care law with the goal of “insurance for everybody,” while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid.

Trump declined to reveal specifics in the telephone interview late Saturday with The Washington Post, but any proposals from the incoming president would almost certainly dominate the Republican effort to overhaul federal health policy as he prepares to work with his party’s congressional majorities. (snip)

Trump said his plan for replacing most aspects of Obama’s health-care law is all but finished. Although he was coy about its details — “lower numbers, much lower deductibles” — he said he is ready to unveil it alongside Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.” People covered under the law “can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better.” (snip)

“It’s not going to be their plan,” he said of people covered under the current law. “It’ll be another plan. But they’ll be beautifully covered. I don’t want single-payer. What I do want is to be able to take care of people,” he said Saturday.

So, what kind of plan is it? As Caleb Howe notes, Trump said something similar back in September of 2015 in an interview with Scott Pelley, stating that the government is going to pay for it. So, what, exactly, is Trump pushing? He’s said before that he admires single payer. Will this be a government heavy legislative offering? He further talks about using the power of government to negotiate all sorts of things for health care, including medications, along with using the power of the federal government to bully companies.

I guess time will tell, and we’ll see if what many of the NeverTrumpers and those of us fence sitters were saying, namely that Trump is a big government, and perhaps a Big Government, type of guy.

Oh, and the Washington Post also notes

The objectives of broadening access to insurance and lowering health-care costs have always been in conflict, and it remains unclear how the plan that the incoming administration is designing — or ones that will emerge on Capitol Hill — would address that tension.

So, the very foundation of Obamacare was a bunch of mule fritters? That they could expand access and lower costs? Huh.

Crossed at Right Wing News.