WASHINGTON — Reeling from a major blow to his legislative agenda, President Donald Trump blamed Democrats on Friday after House Republicans rescinded their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He insisted it wasn’t an immediate priority anyway.
Here is an assessment of his claims.
Trump denied that he promised to act quickly. “I never said repeal it and replace it within 64 days.”
False. Trump has, of course, repeatedly vowed to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement. While Trump never specified doing so within 64 days, killing the health care law was part of his 100-day plan, released in October, and he often promised an even more urgent timeline during the 2016 presidential campaign.
At a campaign rally in Sioux City, Iowa, in October 2015, Trump said that repealing the health law would be the “first thing” he would do as president.
“We will immediately repeal and replace Obamacare — and nobody can do that like me. We will save $’s and have much better health care!” he wrote on Twitter in February 2016.
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“When we win on Nov. 8th and elect a Republican Congress, we will be able to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare,” he said at a rally in November in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
He blamed the failure of the GOP’s health care bill on the Democrats.
This is misleading. Democrats have been united in their opposition since the beginning of the fight to repeal and replace the health law. But Republicans did not need Democratic support to pass their legislation.
Republicans needed 215 votes in the House to pass the bill. They have 237 out of the 435 seats, meaning they could afford only 22 party defections. Before the bill was pulled, 33 Republicans were opposed.
The White House did not immediately respond when asked if Trump tried courting Democratic members in the House.
He claimed Obamacare was “exploding right now.”
This is exaggerated. As Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz have reported in The Times, the Affordable Care Act’s insurance markets are not “exploding,” “imploding,” “failing,” “collapsing” or in a “death spiral.”
While there are certainly issues with the law (for example, high premiums and deductibles), the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in its first estimate of the Republican bill that both it and the Affordable Care Act would stabilize over the long run.
He asserted that there were no Obamacare insurers in parts of Kentucky and Tennessee.
This is exaggerated. The competitive situation is not healthy in those two states, but Trump has overstated the current lack of insurers. But next year, he could be less incorrect.
Congress’ Joint Economic Committee reported, using data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, that 43 percent of counties in Kentucky had two insurers, and 49 percent were covered by just one.
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Tennessee divides its marketplace into eight areas, three of which have two carriers and five of which have one, according its Department of Commerce.
With Humana pulling out of the ACA marketplaces, 16 counties in Tennessee will no longer have insurers available next year, said Larry Levitt, a senior executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “It’s not half the state, but it is a real problem.”
He claimed triple-digit premium increases were common.
This is exaggerated. Only one state, Arizona, saw its premiums double (116 percent). Changes in premium costs ranged from a 3 percent <em>decrease</em> in Indiana to a 69 percent increase in Oklahoma (the second highest).
This year, premiums for the benchmark plan rose by 22 percent on average across the states that use the federal marketplace or have their own exchanges, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
He claimed high increases across the board. “Many places 50, 60, 70 percent.”
This needs context. Six states — Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — saw increases in the range Trump referred to.
As previously stated, the average increase was 22 percent — compared with a 7 percent increase in 2016 and a 3 percent increase in 2015. But looking at premium increases alone does not fully capture what people are paying. About 84 percent of enrollees qualify for tax credits that will help blunt the costs this year, meaning the government picks up the tab for any increase.
Premium increases affect just 3 percent of all Americans.