- President Donald Trump said he would work over the next two weeks on an executive order requiring health insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions.
- This requirement – that insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions – is already legal, and it has been since the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare.
- Trump has, since taking office in 2017, sought to recognize or undermine President Barack Obama’s signature law.
- In June of this year, the Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the law.
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At a press conference held last night in the ballroom of his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Friday night, President Donald Trump said he will be working on an executive mandate in the next two weeks to require health insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing circumstances.
This requirement – that insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions – is already legal, and it has been since the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare.
Trump has, since taking office in 2017, sought to recognize or undermine President Barack Obama’s signature law. In the summer of 2017, Congress failed to repeal the entirety of the law. However, the passage of the GOP tax cut at the end of 2017 eliminated the tax penalty for the individual mandate, which said everyone should have insurance coverage or pay a fine. With the tax penalty gone, 19 Texas-led states filed a lawsuit to say the law was unconstitutional.
The Trump administration supports this package, and in June of this year, the Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to try to reverse the law.
If the ACA were reversed, some 20 million people would lose their health insurance coverage, and popular aspects of the law, such as the mandate that insurance companies cover with people with existing circumstances, would be rejected.
“Over the next two weeks, I will follow a major executive order that requires health insurance companies to cover all pre-existing conditions for all customers,” Trump said on Friday night.
The Republican president, who is running for Democratic candidate Joe Biden before the November election, did not give details about his proposed health plan.
Trump has criticized the cost and coverage under Obamacare and has since his 2016 campaign promised to replace it with a better plan.
Biden has condemned Trump for fighting Obamacare, accusing him of protecting health care for millions of Americans amid a raging pandemic.
(Report by Jeff Mason; Written by Mohammad Zargham; Edited by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler)
