Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Don’t underestimate the appeal of a Trump “health plan”

Bob Doherty
Policy
September 28, 2019
Share
Tweet
Share

As the Democratic candidates for president continue to beat up each other on how best to achieve universal coverage (Medicare for all, a public option, closing the ACA’s coverage gaps), health care journalists keep wondering when President Trump will release his long-promised “phenomenal” plan to position the GOP as “the party of health care” for the 2020 election.

Skepticism is warranted over when or even if the administration will actually offer such plan (never mind whether it will be “phenomenal”) since it never did during the two years when the White House and then GOP-controlled Congress unsuccessfully sought to “repeal and replace” the ACA. The Trump administration currently is urging a federal appeals court to uphold a ruling by a Texas judge that the entire ACA is unconstitutional, without explaining what should replace it—repeal without a replacement. Polling also shows that President Trump starts with a very substantial disadvantage on health care: a recent ABC/Washington Post poll found that “Americans, by a 17-point margin, say his handling of health care makes them more likely to oppose than support him for a second term.”

Yet even without a formal plan, the administration’s approach is readily discernible from the things it has announced and is implementing. Democrats and their progressive allies might discover to their surprise that it may have more appeal to voters than they now anticipate. A Trump health care plan likely would look like this:

1. A promise to let individual Americans decide for themselves what kind of health care coverage they need and how much they want to spend on it, instead of “government bureaucrats” imposing an expensive plan on them. The administration can point to the changes it has made to offer people so-called short-term duration and association health plans, both of which are exempted from the “Obamacare’s” benefit mandates—which it will spin as Washington no longer forcing you to pay for coverage you don’t want or need.

2. It will promise that no one will be turned down for coverage for a pre-existing condition. But unlike the ACA, or Medicare for All, the administration will argue that government won’t dictate what the plans available to people with pre-existing conditions will cover—a 60-year man with Type 2 diabetes won’t be required to buy coverage for maternity care, for instance.

3. It will say that the Trump administration is doing more to reduce paperwork burdens on physicians and patients, through its Patients Over Paperwork initiative.

4. It will say that the President is leading the effort to drive down prescription drug prices and require hospitals to be transparent in their pricing of health care services.

5. It will point to its commitment to protect patients from the harms of tobacco and e-cigarettes, calling for much greater regulation than is usual for Republican administrations.

6. It will contrast its approach of trusting Americans to make their own choices over what it will say is the Democrat’s support for a complete government takeover. It will argue that whether the Democratic nominee supports Medicare for all plan with no private insurance, or a Medicare Choice/public option approach that keeps a role for private insurance, the result will be a government “take-over” of health care, higher taxes, fewer choices, longer waits, and poorer outcomes. (No matter that countries with publicly-funded care generally have better outcomes and lower costs than in the United States). Health insurers, drug manufacturers, and hospitals will eagerly reinforce such misleading scare tactics.

Critics will argue, correctly in my view, that the administration’s weakening of essential benefit and pre-existing protections, efforts to get a federal court to overturn the entire ACA, “conscience protections” that allow employers to opt-out of offering contraception and other needed services, treatment of immigrants, and it’s wholesale assault on women’s reproductive rights and health, denial of climate change, and unwillingness to confront the epidemic of gun violence, are anti-health and anti-patient. At the same time, the administration deserves credit for addressing the administrative burden on physicians, increasing regulation of tobacco, addressing high prescription drug costs, and increasing price transparency. Progressives and Democrats will make the case that Medicare for All, or a public option, will make care more affordable and accessible for most Americans, and they have plenty of evidence on their side.

Yet they would be foolish to underestimate the potential appeal of a Trump “health plan” that is framed, accurately or not, as a choice between you deciding what’s best for your health, or the government deciding for you.

Bob Doherty is senior vice-president, governmental affairs and public policy, American College of Physicians and blogs at the ACP Advocate Blog.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

ADVERTISEMENT

Prev

It's time for presidential candidates to debate the safety of pharmaceutical products

September 28, 2019 Kevin 4
…
Next

To reduce suicides, follow the data

September 28, 2019 Kevin 1
…

Tagged as: Public Health & Policy, Washington Watch

Post navigation

< Previous Post
It's time for presidential candidates to debate the safety of pharmaceutical products
Next Post >
To reduce suicides, follow the data

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Bob Doherty

  • 5 health care lessons from the mid-term elections

    Bob Doherty
  • Medicare’s historic proposal to change how it pays physicians

    Bob Doherty
  • Are physicians ready for single-payer health care?

    Bob Doherty

Related Posts

  • What is the Trump health plan for 2020?

    Robert Laszewski
  • Are negative news cycles and social media injurious to our health?

    Rabia Jalal, MD
  • An analysis of Joe Biden’s health plan

    Robert Laszewski
  • Analyzing the Biden health plan. Will it work?

    Robert Laszewski
  • How social media can help or hurt your health care career

    Health eCareers
  • Sharing mental health issues on social media

    Tarena Lofton

More in Policy

  • The lab behind the lens: Equity begins with diagnosis

    Michael Misialek, MD
  • Conflicts of interest are eroding trust in U.S. health agencies

    Martha Rosenberg
  • When America sneezes, the world catches a cold: Trump’s freeze on HIV/AIDS funding

    Koketso Masenya
  • A surgeon’s late-night crisis reveals the cost confusion in health care

    Christine Ward, MD
  • The school cafeteria could save American medicine

    Scarlett Saitta
  • Native communities deserve better: the truth about Pine Ridge health care

    Kaitlin E. Kelly
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
    • How dismantling DEI endangers the future of medical care

      Shashank Madhu and Christian Tallo | Education
    • How scales of justice saved a doctor-patient relationship

      Neil Baum, MD | Physician
    • The dreaded question: Do you have boys or girls?

      Pamela Adelstein, MD | Physician
    • Rethinking patient payments: Why billing is the new frontline of patient care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • What happened to real care in health care?

      Christopher H. Foster, PhD, MPA | Policy
    • Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting

      American College of Physicians | Physician
    • A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how

      Ankit Jain | Education
    • The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Residency as rehearsal: the new pediatric hospitalist fellowship requirement scam

      Anonymous | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • From basketball to bedside: Finding connection through March Madness

      Caitlin J. McCarthy, MD | Physician
    • In medicine and law, professions that society relies upon for accuracy

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Tech
    • Diabetes and Alzheimer’s: What your blood sugar might be doing to your brain

      Marc Arginteanu, MD | Conditions
    • How motherhood reshaped my identity as a scientist and teacher

      Kathleen Muldoon, PhD | Conditions
    • Jumpstarting African health care with the beats of innovation

      Princess Benson | Conditions
    • Empowering IBD patients: tools for managing symptoms between doctor visits [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 3 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
    • How dismantling DEI endangers the future of medical care

      Shashank Madhu and Christian Tallo | Education
    • How scales of justice saved a doctor-patient relationship

      Neil Baum, MD | Physician
    • The dreaded question: Do you have boys or girls?

      Pamela Adelstein, MD | Physician
    • Rethinking patient payments: Why billing is the new frontline of patient care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • What happened to real care in health care?

      Christopher H. Foster, PhD, MPA | Policy
    • Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting

      American College of Physicians | Physician
    • A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how

      Ankit Jain | Education
    • The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Residency as rehearsal: the new pediatric hospitalist fellowship requirement scam

      Anonymous | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • From basketball to bedside: Finding connection through March Madness

      Caitlin J. McCarthy, MD | Physician
    • In medicine and law, professions that society relies upon for accuracy

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Tech
    • Diabetes and Alzheimer’s: What your blood sugar might be doing to your brain

      Marc Arginteanu, MD | Conditions
    • How motherhood reshaped my identity as a scientist and teacher

      Kathleen Muldoon, PhD | Conditions
    • Jumpstarting African health care with the beats of innovation

      Princess Benson | Conditions
    • Empowering IBD patients: tools for managing symptoms between doctor visits [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Don’t underestimate the appeal of a Trump “health plan”
3 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...