INDIANAPOLIS – The GOP’s continued health care sabotage is being universally panned by hundreds of health care groups, who submitted official comments to the Trump Administration criticizing them in an “extraordinary one-sided outpouring,” the LA Times wrote.
After a series of actions designed to sabotage the health care system last year culminating in the McConnell tax plan, the Trump Administration is now weighing two rules to inject further instability into the insurance markets. That includes a proposal to allow insurers to sell short-term junk plans that could turn away those with pre-existing conditions and would exclude many legally-mandated essential health benefits.
After the administration solicited public comments on its latest proposals, a Times review found that of the hundreds of health care-related and medical groups who submitted comments, nearly all of them were either critical or outright opposed to the changes, including 98% of commenters on the short-term plans. These groups include more than 300 physician and nurse organizations, various trade groups representing the health care industry, and “virtually every leading patient advocate in the country.”
Meanwhile, not a single group representing patients, medical professionals, or hospitals supported any of the new plans. “Basically anybody who knows anything about healthcare is opposed to these proposals,” Sandy Praeger, a former Republican state insurance regulator and former president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, told the Times.
“It seems like everybody and their doctor knows that the Trump Administration’s sabotage efforts are wrong for Indiana, yet Rep. Braun continues to support the efforts of his allies like Mitch McConnell to play politics while millions of Americans suffer at their expense,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “Hoosiers paying double-digit premiums this year can thank Rep. Braun and the GOP for their systematic efforts to make their heath care more expensive or even to prevent them from having it altogether.”
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