Popular vote loser Donald Trump promised this weekend that his healthcare plan would cover everybody and "they’ll be beautifully covered." Washington Post reporter Robert Costa dutifully copied that down, apparently without any follow up like "for real?" so as far as we know, that's what's in Trump's head.
But it appears to be only in Trump's head. If you ask his mouthpiece what his plan is going to be, it's much different. On MSNBC Monday might, Greta Van Susteren did just that, and Kellyanne Conway sounded like she was channeling House Speaker Paul Ryan. After Van Susteren gently points out that Republicans haven't come up with a damn thing for several years, she says Trump promises he'll have something next week, then asks Conway to “give some hints” as to what might be coming (you can watch the video below the fold).
Well, the President-elect, Vice President-elect, Speaker Ryan, Leader McConnell, certainly Congressman Price who will be our next HHS secretary after he's confirmed—we can really get rocking and rolling on this. A couple of hints. You can buy health insurance across state lines. The millions of Americans who still have no access to healthcare will be helped. As Donald Trump said, healthcare for all.
What he means by that is there are many who have been left behind, there are people that had benefits and don't have them anymore. Either they had to give them up because premiums skyrocketed or they were faced with reduced quality in choice or access and then you've got folks who do rely upon the Affordable Care Act and Donald Trump has promised as president that they will not go without care. The other thing is Health Savings Accounts, you get a personal account so you control more of the health care spending and we all become more conscientious about that.
Block-granting Medicaid to the states so that those who administer to those with need in their state do it closer to home. There are nine plans. Republicans did not come up with nothing. They came up with nine different plans over the several years they are trying to reconcile those.
Is it possible Ryan is paying her to say that? Anyway, Conway is paying lip service to her boss's statements there, because the meat of it is this: sell insurance across state lines, Health Savings Accounts, and block-granting Medicaid.
Those are three of the handful of ideas Republicans have tossed around, none of which are going to actually get more people insured, reduce costs for patients or for the government, and make sure health insurance is actually useful in covering the stuff people need. There's nothing about this that a) counts as a plan; b) provides health insurance to everybody; or c) is beautiful.
But if you want to give credit to Trumpland, they may be on to something. A sizeable chunk of people—about one-fifth—who remain uninsured are undocumented. So if he deports all of them, he'll still have a lot of uninsured people on his watch. But not as many as he would otherwise.
By the way, they still don’t have a plan.