Posted by Michael Wonder on 05 Jun 2017
The first hundred days for health care
31 May 2017 - Like my predictions about what a Republican win in the 2016 election would mean for U.S. health policy, my expectations about the ease and speed of passing an Affordable Care Act replacement bill during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have not exactly come to fruition.
But given the Republican focus over the past 7 years on “repealing and replacing” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Trump’s promise to make health care reform an early focus of his administration (at one point, he suggested having Congress meet even before his inauguration), Congress’s attention to the issue has not been surprising — even if it’s not directly in line with Trump’s dominant campaign theme of “making America great again.”
Indeed, it’s been argued that the economy and jobs would have been a politically easier first target than health care — an argument that was made retrospectively for the Obama administration as well.
