Donald Trump’s ascension to the White House puts President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act in grave peril.
Ever since the law passed in 2010, Republicans have campaigned on a pledge to repeal Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement. Trump’s victory, with continued GOP control of Congress, gives them their first opportunity to do so.
Trump and congressional Republicans have set sky-high expectations for repealing Obamacare; he’s promised to scrap it “very very quickly.” And they have a road map to repeal significant parts of the law, even with a narrow Senate majority.
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Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Monday agreed with a radio host who said ObamaCare would not be repealed, likely ever, if Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins the presidency on Tuesday.
“Another hard truth: ObamaCare doesn’t get repealed, likely ever, if Hillary wins,” said Milwaukee radio host Jay Weber in an interview with Ryan. “Doesn’t get repealed. Agree?”
“Yes, yeah, I do agree. I do agree,” Ryan responded. “Hillary’s talking about a public option, which is basically double down on government-run healthcare. That’s the opposite of what we’re offering. We actually have a plan to replace ObamaCare. All of us have basically gotten a consensus on what our plan is, but we have to win an election to put it in place.”
In this space nine months ago, I proposed 5 questions every presidential candidate should answer on health care. Well, the delivery date for Election 2016 arrives tomorrow, and the questions remain “Asked and Not Answered.” There never was much of an effort by the two leading nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, to respond directly, but one still might infer some rough parameters from their various omissions, evasions, and obfuscations. Given the lack of attention to health policy, let alone health policy details, by Trump, we will also assess the outline of House Republicans proposals for health reform embodied in the “A Better Way” documents released last June.
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Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Wednesday embraced Donald Trump’s call for a special session of Congress to repeal ObamaCare.
Ryan, who has at times had a tense relationship with Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, also said repeal of ObamaCare is a reason why Trump should be president.
“Imagine if we had a Republican president,” Ryan told radio host Hugh Hewitt. “This is what Donald Trump is talking about — a special session. We’ve already proven this year with a Republican House and a Republican Senate we can have that special session, and we can repeal, and we can replace ObamaCare.”
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to summon Congress into a special session to end and replace the Affordable Care Act, as he portrayed the repeal of the contentious health-care law as a prime reason for voters to elect him.
In midday remarks in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Trump went slightly beyond his previous promise to try to end the ACA, widely known as Obamacare, on the first day of a Trump administration. But his call for a special session puzzled many, as the current Congress is scheduled to reconvene after the election, and the new one will gavel in January, before Inauguration Day.
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Donald Trump turned from attacking Hillary Clinton over her emails to focusing on voters’ pocketbook issues Tuesday, denouncing President Barack Obama’s health-care law and the recent rise in individual insurance premiums.
The Republican presidential nominee renewed his call to repeal and replace the law known as Obamacare on the first day of the official sign-up period for coverage under the law, and in the wake of significant rate increases in many battleground states.
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Arizona was shaping up to be one of the more unlikely battlegrounds of the 2016 campaign when a political bombshell appeared to explode last week: The Obama administration revealed that the cost of midlevel plans on the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace here would increase next year by 116 percent on average.
Senator John McCain, running for re-election against the headwind of Donald J. Trump, took the bad news as a gift, highlighting it in a new television ad that begins, “When you open up your health insurance bill and find your premiums are doubling, remember that McCain strongly opposes Obamacare.”
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Responding to the uproar over ObamaCare premium hikes, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday promised: “We’re going to make changes to fix problems like that.”
The question is: What changes could actually get through Congress?
Both parties agree that ObamaCare has problems. Premiums are rising sharply, and the pool of enrollees is smaller and sicker than expected.
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Two weeks before Election Day, Obamacare is back big time.
Republicans capitalized on the Affordable Care Act’s unpopularity in 2010 and 2014 to retake both houses of Congress. But until now, the issue hadn’t ignited in a presidential campaign season dominated by the outsize personality of the GOP presidential nominee who has focused on trade, terrorism and ad hominem attacks.
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Hillary Clinton responded to news of ObamaCare premium hikes on Tuesday by saying she is going to “tackle” the problem of high costs, while defending the health law overall.
“We’re going to really tackle that, we’re going to get co-pays and premiums and deductibles down, we’re going to tackle prescription drug costs,” Clinton told the radio station Hot 105.
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