President Trump on Friday claimed Republicans have a “great” health-care plan. “You'll have health care the likes of which you've never seen,” he told reporters. “Much less expensive. Deductibles will be much lower."
It’s not clear what Trump was talking about. Trump’s Medicare chief this week repeatedly brushed aside questions from a House panel on what the administration’s plan is in case a court invalidates the Affordable Care Act, potentially leaving some 20 million Americans without coverage. And while the conservative Republican Study Committee, a group of 145 House GOP representatives, this week put out a new “framework” for replacing Obamacare, that blueprint was far from comprehensive and lacked the formal backing of the White House, which reportedly is still developing its own set of health reform principles.
“Not only is there no plan, there's no effort among congressional Republican leaders to craft a plan,” Bloomberg political reporter Sahil Kapur tweeted. “They don't want to touch this issue again after the repeal-and-replace debacle.”
And a Bloomberg editorial published before Trump’s comments laid out plainly how the health care system could become a chaotic mess if a court strikes down the Affordable Care Act and urged the Trump administration to “wake up to what’s at stake for millions of Americans and start speaking up on their behalf.”
More from the editorial:
“The administration keeps promising a comprehensive replacement for Obamacare, but there’s no sign yet of anything plausible. Until the administration has such a plan, and can explain how it will make things better for most Americans, its aim should be to stabilize and improve Obamacare, not see it undermined haphazardly and without regard to the consequences. Until its officials have something better to suggest, it ought to stop equivocating on this legal challenge, explain to the courts what’s at stake, and argue for the ACA to be put on a firm legal footing.”
