Presidential Executive Order Promoting Healthcare Choice and Competition Across the United States

 IF CONGRESS CAN’T HELP HEALTHCARE, PRESIDENT TRUMP WILL …

Following the colossal failure of of establishment Republicans in the U.S Senate and the lack of any effort by Democrats in either House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order yesterday as the first step in helping the American people with regards to healthcare insurance and hopefully ridding us of the terrible and unaffordable “Affordable Healthcare Act, known as Obamacare. It is about time thee types of provisions were allowed to take place. This should have been done by Congress instead of the creation of Obamacare and the government take over of insurance. Allowing individuals to cross state line to purchase insurance is a no-brainer. Trump’s order will allow agencies to expand the ability of small businesses and other groups to band together to buy health insurance through what are known as association health plans.

President Trunp’s Executive Order on healthcare:

PROMOTING HEALTHCARE CHOICE AND COMPETITION ACROSS THE UNITED STATES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. (a) It shall be the policy of the executive branch, to the extent consistent with law, to facilitate the purchase of insurance across State lines and the development and operation of a healthcare system that provides high-quality care at affordable prices for the American people. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), however, has severely limited the choice of healthcare options available to many Americans and has produced large premium increases in many State individual markets for health insurance. The average exchange premium in the 39 States that are using www.healthcare.gov in 2017 is more than double the average overall individual market premium recorded in 2013. The PPACA has also largely failed to provide meaningful choice or competition between insurers, resulting in one-third of America’s counties having only one insurer offering coverage on their applicable government-run exchange in 2017.

Sec. 2. Expanded Access to Association Health Plans. Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Labor shall consider proposing regulations or revising guidance, consistent with law, to expand access to health coverage by allowing more employers to form AHPs. To the extent permitted by law and supported by sound policy, the Secretary should consider expanding the conditions that satisfy the commonality?of-interest requirements under current Department of Labor advisory opinions interpreting the definition of an “employer” under section 3(5) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The Secretary of Labor should also consider ways to promote AHP formation on the basis of common geography or industry. (read more)

Even Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has been a critic of previous GOP healthcare legislation to repeal and replace, is defending President Trump’s actions. One has to wonder why things like this were not passed by the GOP led House and Senate?

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) defended President Trump’s use of an executive order on Thursday, after Republicans previously criticized former President Obama for overusing the tool to bypass Congress.

“We’re creating something that is freedom. He’s not creating a new government program,” Paul told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“We’ve read the original law and we believe what the president did today is basically an interpretation of the original law, and doesn’t create new territory,” he continued.

Trump’s order will allow agencies to expand the ability of small businesses and other groups to band together to buy health insurance through what are known as association health plans.

Paul said Trump was “legalizing the ability for individuals to join a group to get better purchasing power.”

“There’s no government expense to this, and under the First Amendment there is a clause that says we have the right to peaceably assemble. That has been taken over time to be the right of free association, and it’s also been said by the Supreme Court to actually say that we can join together for economic purposes. So all we’re doing is legalizing the ability for individuals to join a group to get better purchasing power. I think it’s sort of a fundamentally American what we’re advocating,” he said.