"The Trump administration said in August that it would slash spending on advertising and promotion for the Affordable Care Act, but it has already been waging a multipronged campaign against it.
"Despite several failed efforts by Republican lawmakers to repeal it, the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land. But the Department of Health and Human Services -- an agency with a legal responsibility to administer the law -- has used taxpayer dollars to oppose it.
"Legal experts say that while it is common for a new administration to reinterpret an existing law, it is unusual to take steps to undermine it. Here are three ways the health department has campaigned against Obamacare."The uncertainty of whether the plan would be repealed -- as well as the reduced participation resulting from slashed budget for advertising and promotion - leave insurance companies unable to estimate their costs for the coming year. So they jack up premiums to avoid losing money. So Republicans saying costs are out of control -- and then sabotaging its success -- becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is a Republican strategy to try to make Obamacare fail, which they've been predicting ever since it became law. Here are some other ways in which Team Trump is sabotaging the health care plan, as reported by the authors.
1. "Redirecting Promotional Funding." Instead of using its outreach budget to promote the ACA, the department made YouTube videos critical of the law. The videos were testimonials of people who said they had been "burdened" by it. One of them told reporters that he felt he was being pushed to "take a harder line against Obamacare." The preponderance of negative reports in the department videos did not match the independent polls,
2. "Attacking the Law." The department targeted the ACA with a marketing campaign as Republicans in Congress tried to repeal the legislation. During the period Congress was deliberating the law, Secretary of HHS Tom Price "sent out on Twitter 48 infographics advocating against" the program it is supposed to administer. In addition, "the Trump administration ended $25 million worth of contracts that help people sign up for coverage."
3. "Deleting Information Online. The department removed useful guidelines for consumers about the ACA from its website." Much of the information that the Obama administration had put online to help consumers learn about he ACA and how to obtain coverage is now gone, some of the basic links the very night of the inauguration. It also erased positive personal stories about benefits people had received.
The authors conclude with a comment from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank that said: "It's these kinds of actions -- pulling back on outreach and enrollment, disseminating negative propaganda about the existing law -- those are the things that make the market implode."
And yet -- in spite of their best efforts, and in spite of lack of cooperation by a number of Republican governors in red states, and despite SCOTUS taking out one of the elements that made it work -- despite all that, Obamacare still lives. And now a bipartisan group from the health committee in Congress is working to fix some of the problems that will make it work better, thanks to the leadership of Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murphy.
Ralph
PS: On Tuesday this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced his "Medicare for All" bill in the Senate. In writing about this, Matthew Yglesias wrote on Vox.com that "By destabilizing ACA marketplaces, Donald Trump is leaving Democrats nowhere to go but left." And he's still doing it, as described above. Yglesias' point is that this commits Democrats to going the route of an all-government program, including phasing out the employer-based health insurance. If instead Republicans had helped to improved Obamacare, the long-range solution could have developed in the direction of a private-insurance-based system, or at least some sort of a hybrid plan. I'm not arguing that an all-government program is bad, but some people would. The point is: it's a more radical change than one involving private insurance.
PS#2: In less than 2 weeks, insurance companies must lock in their premium rates for the coming year. And Donald Trump still refuses to say whether he will continue paying subsidies to help make coverage affordable. The insurers say, quite frankly, that it's this uncertainty that impels them to raise rates. Meanwhile, the large insurance company Anthem has agreed to provide coverage in any county in the country. So this eliminates the problem of places with no available exchange policies.
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