Trump’s top-secret health care plan: ‘Something terrific’
There’s secret, top-secret, code-word-secret — and then there’s whatever President Donald Trump’s health-care plan is.
It’s apparently so deeply classified that the people overseeing the plan don’t even know they’re involved.
The Republican Party has promised (and failed) to repeal and replace Obamacare for more than a decade — that is, the entirety of the law’s existence. Trump began teasing his own replacement plan five years ago. Back then, he pledged to swap out the Affordable Care Act for “something terrific,” details TBD.
Trump has boasted about the benefits of his plan. It would be cheaper yet somehow more generous than Obamacare. It would be “so easy,” even though “nobody knew health care could be so complicated.” It would “take care of everybody,” even as it took literal care away from many.
This plan was always “two weeks” away — coincidentally the timeline promised for most every Trump announcement. As the fortnights passed, suspense grew. Finally, an announcement came this week: It exists!
“I have it all ready,” Trump said at a town hall last week, “and it’s a much better plan for you, and it’s a much better plan.”
Alas, Trump remains unable to share this “much better plan” with the public. Or, it seems, anyone within his administration.
A day after Trump’s statement, several senior health officials testifying before the Senate were asked whether they were aware of any specific proposal to replace Obamacare.
“I’m not involved in the replacement plan,” said Adm.
Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services. “I don’t know what that is.”
His colleague Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary for preparedness and response, likewise said he knew nothing. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, echoed that he wasn’t aware of an Obamacare replacement plan.
Now, it might seem improbable that Trump wouldn’t clue in his most senior health officials about a health-care program they would oversee. But it’s less strange when considering other tasks explicitly in these officials’ portfolios that they also apparently know nothing about.
Asked who was working on the Obamacare replacement, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany explained that planning involved “a wide array of people.” Also: “I’m not going to give you a readout of what our health-care plan looks like and who’s working on it.”
Finally: “If you want to know, come work here at the White House.”
In other words, Trump’s brainchild is so sensitive, so secret, it must remain within the cone of silence. There it will stay, under lock and key, presumably alongside evidence from Area 51, the names of the real Kennedy assassins and the nuclear codes.
Now, you might argue that the public has a vested interest in learning the details of a plan that would overhaul 18% of the economy. Particularly during a public health crisis. Especially one that has caused millions to lose their jobs and health insurance.
And perhaps especially when the incumbent system Trump’s plan would replace, Obamacare, is already being destroyed.
Trump has had loads of free airtime to boast, usually unchallenged, about the impossible feats his still-confidential health plan would achieve; much less coverage has gone to the damage he and fellow Republicans have wrought upon the existing healthcare system — through impenetrable red tape for Medicaid enrollees, the expansion of junk insurance and other administrative sabotage. Under Trump’s watch, the uninsured rate was rising even before the pandemic recession, especially among children.
Meanwhile, Trump has asked the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare, including its protections for those with preexisting conditions. The court is scheduled to hear arguments a week after the election. Maybe by then we’ll have seen Trump’s replacement plan. Or maybe he’ll simply claim he’s already signed it into law and hope no one notices. Placebos sometimes work, you know.