If there’s one thing President Trump does well, it’s doing the opposite of what the public wants while imagining it will bring him the love he craves.
Most want Congress to continue cost-sharing reduction payments as part of bipartisan marketplace deal, according to a new Kaiser poll that was published today, the 13th – the morning after Trump announced he would sabotage Obamacare by…
… stopping the cost reduction payments.
The October Kaiser health tracking poll was conducted prior to the Trump administration’s announcement that they would cease the payments. It found, “One proposed step Congress could take to stabilize the markets and control costs for people who purchase their plans on their own is to guarantee payments to insurance companies that help cover the cost of deductibles and copayments for lower-income Americans (known commonly as ‘cost-sharing reduction’ (CSR) payments). The Trump Administration has announced they will stop making these payments, which has led to insurance companies saying they may raise premiums or stop participating in the marketplaces.”
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“When asked what Congress should do, a majority of the public (60 percent) support Congress guaranteeing the funds to continue these payments to help stabilize the insurance market, while one-third think these payments amount to a bailout of insurance companies and should be stopped. While the majority of Democrats (82 percent) and independents (62 percent) say Congress should guarantee the CSR payments, slightly more than half of Republicans (55 percent) say the payments should be stopped.”
Trump is just playing to his base in a rather desperate attempt to get some love after the failure of his wall and other “policies” like his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare on day one – before reality educated him that the presidency is not a dictatorship.
Unfortunately for Trump, as usual he is on the wrong side of things as favorability for Obamacare increased even over the last month with about half (51%) of the public holding favorable views of it, while 40% hold an unfavorable view of the 2010 law. “This is five percentage points higher than the share of the public who held favorable attitudes last month (46 percent), and more similar to the share measured in August.”
If you add in the fact that many Republicans are actually on Obamacare and don’t know it, and they love the program they are on (which is to say, they love Obamacare but don’t know it), this number could be even higher. If you add in the fact that contrary to the public’s notion, Obamacare is not “government insurance” – but is also many regulations and laws the public now takes for granted as “rights”, more people are probably in favor of Obamacare than know they are.
Trump’s decision to stop making the ACA’s cost-sharing payments will result in 1 million people losing their health insurance according to the CBO.
Instead of working on a bipartisan basis to help people by tweaking Obamacare, Trump is tossing 1 million people off of their health insurance. It’s fair to ask if he even knows that he is doing this, given his lack of policy comprehension.
The morning after Trump announced he will stop these payments, a new poll shows a majority want him to keep them. As bad as this looks, this is actually a good day for Donald Trump, considering that his usual day is full of glaring screams for mental health help. Simply being widely incompetent and unpopular is a bit of an up so far. However, it is only noon and it is Fired Friday.
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