Posted by Michael Wonder on 12 Oct 2017
Foiled in Congress, Trump moves on his own to undermine Obamacare
11 October 2017 - President Trump, after failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act in Congress, will act on his own to relax health care standards on small businesses that band together to buy health insurance and may take steps to allow the sale of other health plans that skirt the health law’s requirements.
The president plans to sign an executive order “to promote health care choice and competition” on Thursday at a White House event attended by small-business owners and others.
Although Mr. Trump has been telegraphing his intentions for more than a week, Democrats and some state regulators are now greeting the move with increasing alarm, calling it another attempt to undermine President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. They warn that by relaxing standards for so-called association health plans, Mr. Trump would create low-cost insurance options for the healthy, driving up costs for the sick and destabilising insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act.
