Trump Cuts Grants To Help People Get Health Insurance And Instead Directs Them To Junk Plans

The Trump administration is cutting grants for non-profits that help people get health insurance, and instead directing them to offer people junk health insurance plans.

The New York Times reported:
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it was slashing grants to nonprofit organizations that help people obtain health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, the latest step in an escalating attack on the law that threatens to destabilize its insurance markets.

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The administration is not only cutting grants to navigators, but fundamentally changing their mission. They will, for the first time, help people enroll in health insurance plans that do not comply with the consumer protection standards and other requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

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Since they began work in 2013, navigators have helped people enroll in health plans that comply with the Affordable Care Act. Now the Trump administration says they should also inform consumers of other options, like “association health plans” and short-term, limited-duration insurance. Such plans do not have to provide the standard health benefits like preventive services, maternity care or prescription drug coverage, but administration officials say they will also be more affordable to consumers.

Trump is taking away affordable health insurance and directing non=profits to sign people up for junk insurance

The goal for Trump is simple. He is trying to keep the number of people with health insurance up so that he can claim that getting rid of Obamacare was a good thing and that he has replaced it with something better. The problem is that Trumpcare is garbage that is insurance in name only. The plans will be more affordable because they don’t cover anything that people actually need. A healthy person who ends up in the ER after an accident or illness, not only will have a hospital bill but also prescriptions. The ER visit and prescriptions that have their costs limited to maybe a few hundred dollars total will skyrocket to costing thousands of dollars under Trumpcare’s junk insurance.

It’s a scam to take away good insurance and replace it with an empty shell.

Trump is attacking the ACA through executive orders, but a Democratic Congress can fight back with legislation and leverage to stop the assault on health care. People will die due to Trump’s decisions, which makes stopping him a true matter of life and death for millions of Americans.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association