On June 26, President Trump tweeted, “Republican Senators are working very hard to get there, with no help from the Democrats. Not easy! Perhaps just let OCare crash & burn!” regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka Obamacare. While Trump has never been discrete on social media, his response to the ACA repeal movement comes at his own behest, considering he has pushed Senate Republicans to come to an agreement on their ACA replacement plan which has both conservative and moderate Republicans divided within Senate.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats sit united in their opposition as they watch GOP senators offer some public debate on the merits of the proposed ACA repeal legislation penned by GOP Senate leadership. Trump tweeted the Democrat lawmakers’ help is nowhere to be found. His language suggests that the Senate Democrats are opting out of the debate. However, the Senate GOP created and are now modifying their plan behind closed doors without allowing any access from across the aisle. So, is the absence of any “help” from the Dems surprising?
Adding more complexity to healthcare reform is the injection of individual states that plan of adding state measures to keep the protections of the ACA intact.
For example, at the top of June, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo released a press statement via the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), expressing that he will “aggressively” protect the healthcare of New Yorkers should the ACA be repealed and replaced. Among those measures, emergency regulations that will assist in maintaining certain ACA provisions like hospitalization, surgeries and other medical expenses. These emergency regulations typically last for 90 days, with 60-day renewal increments to follow.
Other measures include the prevention of big insurers to withdraw from vital parts of New York healthcare exchange including “any program that interacts with the marketplace, including Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and the Essential Plan.” Further, Cuomo firmed plans to ensure access to contraceptives and abortion protections. This would counteract the efforts by Trump and GOP congressional leaders to defund Planned Parenthood (an organization that provides such access) through the ACA replacement plan.
And this is just one state’s course of action. Other states, particularly Democrat leaning, will inevitably follow should the Senate greenlight a healthcare plan that will cause the loss of healthcare coverage to Americans, which the CBO scored on Monday to be 22 million by 2026.
While Trump has expressed support for states having more power to make decisions surrounding the healthcare of their residents, this may not be what Trump had in mind. Despite Trump’s growing urgency to have this decision made prior to July 4, perhaps he and the Senate GOP will take into consideration all of their efforts may be contravened in many Democrat leaning through “state rights,” should the plans move forward without any Democrat input.
