Campaign Action
Popular vote loser Donald Trump is making good on one promise—he's going to destroy Obamacare whatever way he can, including all but eliminating advertising for the new enrollments period, November 1 through December 15 cutting funding for it by 90 percent and eliminating 40 percent of the in-person enrollment efforts. He's already slashed that open enrollment period from three months to just six weeks. Who does this hurt? Everyone.
Increasing enrollment is a big step to ensure that younger, healthy people sign up for coverage. This not only provides them with insurance, but it helps balance out the risk pool, keeps costs down for all enrollees, and mitigates losses for insurers participating in the exchanges.
If enrollment declines, it could lead to higher costs for Americans and an uptick in the uninsured rate according to Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy think tank.
"There's little question that cutting back on outreach and advertising will result in more people uninsured," said Levitt. "Those who fail to sign up will be healthier than average, which will cause the risk pool to deteriorate and premiums to rise. This is not a signal that the administration is trying to make the law succeed."
Of course it's not. This is deliberate sabotage. It's not even saving taxpayer dollars as Andy Slavitt, former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator under the Obama administration points out. "These aren't budget decisions […] these are all funds that come out of user fees paid by the insurance companies. This wouldn't cost the federal government a nickel. […] [I]t's hard to interpret this as anything other than being done out of spite." It's just spite, and is going to make signing up much harder and it's going to result in people not getting health coverage. It's going to end in people not getting care. It's going to mean people dying prematurely, unnecessarily.
The Senate is going to be taking up some kind of Obamacare stabilization effort next week, with the health committee beginning hearings on bipartisan proposals, including these from a group of governors. What the Senate needs to do in any stabilization legislation is mandate outreach spending levels to force the administration to comply with this law.