News channels and reporters have been broadcasting and headlining the Trump administration’s healthcare reforms, but what are the impacts of these laws on the lay person? There have been a series of executive orders and bills passed in the last few months, and it can be difficult to understand the impacts they have, as economic and political jargon is thrown around, obscuring the reality of the implications of the proposed bills and reforms to our current healthcare system.
Trump has been passing executive orders in an effort to reform healthcare.
Executive order passed Mid-October
- No more federal subsidies for insurance companies to help low-income people pay for health insurance, reducing access to healthcare for many who fit into this category
- Insurance companies can offer lower cost and lower coverage policies for healthy people, but this means higher copay
- May disproportionately affect women, since women bear children and this equates to increased healthcare needs
- Since the bill will have to go through federal agencies, we will likely not see effects until 2019
The Alexander Murray Bill, Passed on October 24th
- This bill was a bipartisan attempt to alleviate the repercussions of the AHCA
For those unfamiliar with the AHCA, it is the acronym for the American Healthcare Act, a series of healthcare reforms passed by the Trump administration to “repeal and replace” what used to be Obamacare.
Tax Overhaul Passed Mid-December
- Increased access to association health plans, by allowing health insurance companies, that are currently restricted by differing state regulations, to operate across state borders. In theory this plan works, but in reality, only 5 major health insurance companies have the ability to expand to this type of large scale operation. Additionally, these plans are unregulated and would not be mandated to include the benefits that Obamacare covered.
- The healthcare mandate regulated by Obamacare will no longer exist, giving healthy people less of an incentive to have healthcare insurance. With less healthy people in the market, premiums for the sick and elderly will increase.
This may be confusing to take in all at once, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. With the current political climate, it is likely that there will be many more reforms and bills to come, each one masked by more sugar-coated political agenda. It is imperative that we decipher and analyze what each of these bills mean for us both in the short and long term.
Feature Image source: By Obama – Obamacare, CC BY-SA 4.0,
