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Trump’s Executive Order On Obamacare Means Everything And Does Nothing

Source: fivethirtyeight.com - Jan 23, 2017

As promised, on his first day in office, President Donald Trump took steps to undo the Affordable Care Act, former President Obama’s signature health care law. In one of his first executive orders, Trump pushed the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other federal agencies to begin weakening the law. The meaning of the executive order is both subtle and bold; on the one hand, it does very little because it doesn’t grant the administration any powers that it didn’t already have. On the other hand, it signals to the public that change is coming and lets employees at HHS know that they’d better be part of that change.

Section 2 of the order instructs the secretary of HHS to “exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay” parts of the law that would place a fiscal burden on states, individuals or health-care providers. Most of the provisions in the ACA can’t just be changed by HHS or the president; they require action from Congress or a lengthy period involving public comment. Which is why it’s reasonable to assume this line is targeted at the things HHS can change, like the individual mandate. The individual mandate, which requires most people to have health insurance or face a tax penalty, has always been the most contentious part of the law.

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Category: General Business