Hold the presses! Donald Trump actually released a policy paper -- sort of -- on how he plans to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.
Remember all that crap in the last debate/town hall about pre-existing conditions out of Trump's mouth? I was literally ranting on Twitter, because the way he said it sounded like he would reinstate pre-existing conditions, but all of the "knowledgeable" people around me said, "Oh, no, he wouldn't do that."
Well, guess the hell what? That's exactly what he wants to do.
Here's point 1:
Completely repeal Obamacare. Our elected representatives must eliminate the individual mandate. No person should be required to buy insurance unless he or she wants to.
A complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act means repealing pre-existing conditions exclusions. And so we're clear here, his emphasis on the individual mandate going away proves that point.
But other than that, there's not a single mention of them anywhere.
Points 2-7 are the GOP wish list for health care:
Modify existing law that inhibits the sale of health insurance across state lines.
Hello, race to the bottom. Ask any student who got their credit card jacked to 29.99% when they didn't even miss a payment or were never late. Even with the CARD Act, credit card companies can set interest rates as high as they want, as long as it complies with their state laws. Which is why so many of them are based in South Dakota, by the way.
Allow individuals to fully deduct health insurance premium payments from their tax returns under the current tax system.
Well, that won't help anyone in the middle class who doesn't have employer insurance, because they won't be able to pay for it. Or they'll be excluded because of a pre-existing condition. So there's that.
Allow individuals to use Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Contributions into HSAs should be tax-free and should be allowed to accumulate.
Yes, that $50 per month will surely help out with hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills.
Require price transparency from all healthcare providers, especially doctors and healthcare organizations like clinics and hospitals.
Oh, irony. The Affordable Care Act already requires this. Isn't it interesting that of all the things they want to repeal, this is the one they'd reinstate?
Block-grant Medicaid to the states.
A Republican wet dream right there. They've wanted that forever.
Remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products.
I'm not even sure what this means. Better that the government negotiate drug prices than this.
Just because Trump can never resist bullshit like this:
Providing healthcare to illegal immigrants costs us some $11 billion annually. If we were to simply enforce the current immigration laws and restrict the unbridled granting of visas to this country, we could relieve healthcare cost pressures on state and local governments.
Sounds like it was written by the Kochs.