Trump applauds 'Obamacare repeal' in the tax bill - but there's a big problem with that claim
- President Donald Trump applauded the near-passage of the GOP tax bill on Wednesday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
- Trump said the bill's repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate "means Obamacare is being repealed."
- This is not true. Many of Obamacare's elements remain intact.
President Donald Trump applauded the near passage of the GOP tax bill Wednesday during a Cabinet meeting in which he made a false claim about its affect on the Affordable Care Act.
Trump pointed to the healthcare changes contained in the tax bill, saying the elimination of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate amounts to a repeal of Obamacare.
"The individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed because they get their money from the individual mandate," Trump said.
The mandate, which requires most Americans to get health insurance or pay a fine, is repealed in the GOP tax bill. But that does not mean the entire law is being repealed.
- The infrastructure for the individual insurance exchanges, such as Healthcare.gov, remain in place.
- The expansion of Medicaid under the ACA, which helped cover an additional 15 million people, remains in place in the states that have opted to expand the program.
- Other policy changes from the law, such as insurance companies' inability to reject a patient due to a preexisting condition and mandatory coverage of basic health needs like prescriptions, remain in place.
In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the Obamacare individual insurance markets are likely to remain relatively stable - albeit with a lower enrollment total - even without the mandate.
But the mandate repeal could still bring about adverse affects on the healthcare market.
The CBO estimated that 13 million more people would go without insurance by 2027 without the mandate than if it remained in place. It also estimated that premiums in Obamacare markets would jump 10% over the current baseline.
Most consumers will be shielded from the increase due to subsidies from the federal government, but as many as 2 million Americans could be priced out of insurance, according to the CBO.
Watch Trump's remarks here: