Trump
The 45th president says he is drafting an executive order intended to protect patients with preexisting conditions
President Donald Trump announced Friday that he is planning to present a new executive order that will require health insurance companies to cover patients with preexisting conditions.
It turns out, however, that such a law already exists, thanks to his predecessor, as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is widely known as “Obamacare.”
The president made the announcement at a last-minute press conference held at his company’s golf course in Bedminster, NJ, as reported by Business Insider.
“Over the next two weeks I’ll be pursuing a major executive order requiring health insurance companies to cover all preexisting conditions for all customers,” the president stated.
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Obamacare first came into existence in 2010, brought upon, and nicknamed after, then-President Barack Obama. The law, which overhauled the U.S. health system, requires that health insurance companies cover individuals with preexisting conditions.
Besides the rule already being in place, something else that makes Trump’s announcement curious is his crusade against the ACA. Ever since the 2016 election cycle, the 45th president and his fellow Republicans have vowed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.
The Trump administration’s first attempt to replace the ACA in 2017 was unsuccessful. However, by the end of that year, the tax penalty for the individual mandate, which stipulated that each individual have health insurance or pay a penalty, was gutted in the GOP’s far-reaching tax cuts.
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Subsequently, more than one dozen states, led by Texas, filed suit against the ACA, stating that certain provisions of the act were unconstitutional. The White House backed the 19 states in the suit.
Although the President is adamant about removing Obamacare, doing so would leave over 20 million Americans without health coverage and, ironically, remove the law barring health insurers from turning away patients due to preexisting conditions.
The Grio
