Health

Trump: ‘Obamacare Is Finished, It’s Dead’

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Robert Donachie Capitol Hill and Health Care Reporter
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President Donald Trump said Monday that Obamacare is no longer the law of the land in the U.S. health care system.

“Obamacare is finished, it’s dead. It’s gone. It’s no longer … you shouldn’t even mention it. It’s gone. There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore,” the president said in a cabinet meeting Monday.

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The president’s comments come one week after his administration laid serious blows to Obamacare, and less than a month before the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment period begins.

Over the course of his first nine months in office, the president rolled back funding for a program intended to help individuals navigate the insurance marketplace, signed an executive order to allow for groups to purchase insurance across state lines and stopped federal funding for Obamacare subsidies.

The Trump administration announced late Thursday evening that it will no longer fund a crucial feature of Obamacare that helps low-income Americans purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act state exchanges, known as cost-sharing reductions.

“The bailout of insurance companies through these unlawful payments is yet another example of how the previous administration abused taxpayer dollars and skirted the law to prop up a broken system,” the White House said in a statement. “Congress needs to repeal and replace the disastrous Obamacare law and provide real relief to the American people.”

Trump also signed an executive order Thursday that charged a number of federal agencies with finding ways to expand access to health insurance plans that are outside of Obamacare regulations. The order relaxes the rules and regulations surrounding association health plans — groups of small businesses (and possibly individuals) that join together to purchase insurance. The order would also allow these groups to purchase insurance across state lines.

“With these actions … We are moving toward lower costs and more options in the health care market, and taking crucial steps toward saving the American people from the nightmare of Obamacare,” the president said Thursday.

“This will direct [agencies] to take action to increase competition, increase choice, and increase access to lower-cost, high-quality health-care options,” Trump added. “This will cost the United States virtually nothing, and people will have great, great health care.”

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