TRUMP WANTS TO KEEP REAL HEALTHCARE AWAY FROM U.S. CITIZENS

…Scrooge Mc Trump seems to be real

The Trump administration wants to go after “poor Americans”.

The Trump administration has shown that it is both irresponsible and incompetent when it comes to the nation’s healthcare.

The Trump idea of healthcare can be summed up by the Vice President’s comments at an Iowa fund-raiser dinner last week.  A usual, VP Pence did not know that his own administration is working to cut, rather than expand, health coverage for the poor.

During the current election campaigns, the Democrats are debating the best path to universal health coverage.  But the Republicans are laser-focused on taking insurance away from as many Americans as possible. They have adopted a multi-pronged approach to do this..

The Republicans currently have a lawsuit that is attempting to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA).  This includes the current law’s that protects patients with preexisting conditions. This is occurring despite President Trump’s stupid insistence that he “saved” those provisions and that he will “always protect” them.  

During an interview in Switzerland, last month, Trump also professed his interest in cutting Medicare if he gets elected to a second term. This too defies his campaign promise to leave the program untouched.

Last week, the Trump administration unveiled the latest scheme to slash spending on Medicaid.  That’s the program that provides health coverage to a fifth of low-income Americans.  This is the same idea that the GOP has been pushing for decades, and it’s called “block grants.”

Up until now, states have received an open-ended federal match for Medicaid funding.  Today, the amount of federal dollars fluctuates based on the need.  For example, federal Medicaid funding automatically rises when a recession strikes because more people would then qualify for public coverage.

But under Trump’s “New Deal” his new policy would change all that.

Instead, each state could decide to instead get just a flat amount of funding from the feds to cover the Medicaid expansion population.  That is regardless of year-to-year changes in enrollment or demand for services.

States that would choose this arrangement would also be allowed to cut benefits, such as by eliminating coverage of some prescription drugs or certain categories of preventive care. The states could also impose new out-of-pocket costs on low-income enrollees.  In other words, the poor would be forced to pay more and receive less.  Another classic Trump lie against his prior campaign promises.

Obviously, these cuts would be challenged in the courts, as it would be quite unpopular.

You may recall the last time the GOP proposed this same approach as part of their Obamacare repeal efforts in 2017.  The backlash of the idea received at the time is presumably why the Trump administration has re-branded block grants with a new bazaar name.  They now call the same stupid idea the “Healthy Adult Opportunity” initiative.  

No, I’m not kidding.

This proposed policy change, as with the Trump administration’s other attempts to cut Medicaid, is just one of their approaches against the nation’s healthcare issues.

As an example of their incompetence, at an Iowa Trump rally, Vice President Pence walked into a fund-raising diner, where he was ready to glad-hand some of the locals. Unfortunately for Pence, one of the diner’s patrons was an emergency physician named Rob Davidson. 

Davidson is also the executive director of an organization of doctors, medical professionals and activists called the “Committee to Protect Medicare”.  Davidson was in town for a committee news conference on those threats against health coverage.

This meeting was unplanned, but Davidson seized the opportunity. He asked Pence about Trump’s recent comments about Medicare and the Medicaid block grant announcement.

“I work in one of the poorest counties in Michigan, and my patients depend on expanded Medicaid, so how is that going to affect my patients?” Davidson, who is a former Democratic congressional candidate, asked this politely.

Pence was caught off-guard and he professed total ignorance, (which is probably true) saying he “hadn’t heard” about these policies.

But just as Trump falsely claims he’s safeguarding, rather than going against protections for preexisting conditions, Pence insisted that whatever the administration had just announced surely involved expanding Medicaid coverage, not cutting it.  As proof of this claim, Pence repeatedly stressed his earlier work as governor of Indiana, where he had indeed expanded Medicaid.  This was something he was able to do, of course, only because of Obama’s Affordable Care Act that Trump and Pence are now working to destroy.

Davidson then explained that the policy announced that same day would actually reduce access to care, not increase it.  Davidson also expressed concern that increased out-of-pocket costs would make it harder for his patients to get insulin and other life-saving treatments.

As expected, Pence remained unmoved. “Medicaid, as you know, has a lot of problems,” Pence said.  He then added: “The administration was merely promoting “state-based innovation and reform,” and then of course,  Pence removed himself from the conversation and the dinner.

Davidson was asked afterwards if he believed Pence genuinely hadn’t realized that the administration’s policy involved cuts to Medicaid coverage, or if he knew and didn’t care. Davidson said he assumed Pence’s ignorance was falsely offered, especially since that the architect behind the block-grant proposal had previously worked directly for Pence while he was governor of Indiana.

Apparently, Trump and his administration is hiding behind Trump’s campaign statement that: “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.” 

In any case, if Trump is re-elected, he will most likely work very hard to continue to reverse anything that occurred under President Obama, regardless of how it hurts the American public.

And being that the United States is the only democratic nation that doesn’t have universal healthcare for all of its citizens, apparently the Trump administration just doesn't care.

Apparently, the Trump administration wants to make sure that the pharmaceutical industry can continue screwing the American public, and that the situation in the US stays as it is.

Copyright G. Ater 2020