Friday, March 24, 2017

‘Exploding’ Obamacare is more popular than Trump

I must be missing something.

In today’s “it’s not my fault” press conference, Alternative President Donald J. Trump made two statements about Obamacare that I don’t understand. Chances are, he doesn’t understand them, either.

First, he said 2017 is going to be a very bad year for the Affordable Care Act but he didn’t explain why.

Well, we’re an Obamacare family now in our third year of the program and it seems OK to me. We have our provider, our plan is pretty good and while premiums for this year went up, they are already set for all of 2017... and with the subsidy we’re able to pay them every month. Do we wish they were lower? Sure, but I could say the same thing about the cost of milk, bread, electricity and cable TV.

If Year 3 is like Years 1 and 2, nothing is going to change until January 1, 2018, so I don’t know how he can argue that it’s going to get worse this year – unless he and Congress do something to sabotage it. The next enrollment period starts in November, so we appear to be set until the end of the year.

Second, he said that Obamacare is going to explode this year.

What does that even mean? When he won the election on a platform to “repeal and replace,” new enrollments went through the roof, as I recall. That means that people who want it went out and got it, with polls showing it is now more popular than he is. (Obamacare has an approval rating in the mid-40s while Trump has dropped to 37%.)

What part of that says “explode?”

I admit that the complexities of the health insurance marketplace are a few steps above my pay grade, so I’m sincerely asking if anybody knows what the hell Trump was talking about? If you do, please leave a comment and enlighten me.

Trump also said today that he never promised to “repeal and replace” Obamacare in his first 64 days in office, which is technically true because he actually said he would do it on Day 1, so I can’t call that a lie.

It is, however, another broken promise, so if anything is exploding in 2017, it appears to be Donald Trump.

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