Name: Trump’s Executive Order on Preexisting Conditions Lacks Teeth, Experts Say
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Trump’s Executive Order on Preexisting Conditions Lacks Teeth, Experts Say

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This story also ran on .Protecting people with preexisting medical conditions is an issue that has followed President Donald Trump his entire first term. Now, Trump has signed an executive order that he says locks in coverage regardless of anyone’s health history. “Any health care reform legislation that comes to my desk from Congress must protect the preexisting conditions or I won’t sign it,” Trump said at a &nbsp;signing event.With the executive order, Trump said, “This is affirmed, signed and done, so we can put that to rest.”Health law and health policy experts say Trump has put nothing to rest.Here’s why.The&nbsp;&nbsp;is brief.“It has been and will continue to be the policy of the United States to give Americans seeking healthcare more choice, lower costs, and better care and to ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions can obtain the insurance of their choice at affordable rates.”Joe Antos with the American Enterprise Institute, a market-oriented think tank, said the order “has no technical content.”“All it really is, is a statement that he wants one or more of his departments to come up with a plan. And he doesn’t give any guidance or the vaguest outline of what that plan should be.”It takes more than a bill title to actually deliver guaranteed coverage. A Republican measure in the Senate is a good example. It’s called the Protect Act, but it has&nbsp; that would allow insurance companies to drop coverage of certain expensive diseases from all their policies.So far, Republican proposals&nbsp; what the Affordable Care Act already provides. And University of Pennsylvania law professor Allison Hoffman said Trump’s executive order doesn’t change that.“The language itself guarantees nothing near the protections in the Affordable Care Act, and such sweeping protections are only possible by congressional action, not regulation,” Hoffman said.Trump and other Republicans on the campaign trail have faced repeated questioning about what will happen if the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates the Affordable Care Act. The White House is strongly behind a legal case to declare it unconstitutional. Oral arguments before the court are scheduled for&nbsp;.Indiana University health law professor David Gamage said the executive order is no stopgap should the White House win that argument.“Were the court to hold the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, the executive order would still do nothing, because it has no enforcement power,” Gamage said.Larry Levitt, head of health policy at KFF, a widely used source of neutral health care data, &nbsp;“a pinky promise to protect people with preexisting conditions.”Trump’s critics have said the order runs counter to the administration’s goal of undoing the Affordable Care Act. But as and others point out, there are other ways to guarantee coverage to everyone.Lanhee Chen at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution said high-risk pools remain a popular idea in conservative circles.“Most conservative analysts, for example, have supported a system of well-funded high-risk pools at the state level to provide protections for the impacted population,” Chen said.High-risk pools have been around for decades. With them, the government, rather than a private insurance company, pays for a person’s care. But as with everything in health care, you don’t get something for nothing. State high-risk pools in the past lacked enough money to cover the large number of people with needs.Hoffman said some high-risk pools charged very high premiums, making them unaffordable to many people.Coverage for preexisting conditions is a persistent issue because so many Americans have them or fear having them in the future.KFF estimates that &nbsp;have a preexisting condition that would have led to a denial of coverage in the individual insurance market before the Affordable Care Act took effect.September 28, 2020Protecting people with preexisting medical conditions is an issue that has followed President Donald Trump his entire first term. Now, Trump has signed an executive order that he says locks in coverage regardless of anyone’s health history. “Any health care reform legislation that comes to my desk from Congress must protect the preexisting conditions or I won’t sign it,” Trump said at a &nbsp;signing event.With the executive order, Trump said, “This is affirmed, signed and done, so we can put that to rest.”Health law and health policy experts say Trump has put nothing to rest.Here’s why.The&nbsp;&nbsp;is brief.“It has been and will continue to be the policy of the United States to give Americans seeking healthcare more choice, lower costs, and better care and to ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions can obtain the insurance of their choice at affordable rates.”Joe Antos with the American Enterprise Institute, a market-oriented think tank, said the order “has no technical content.”“All it really is, is a statement that he wants one or more of his departments to come up with a plan. And he doesn’t give any guidance or the vaguest outline of what that plan should be.”It takes more than a bill title to actually deliver guaranteed coverage. A Republican measure in the Senate is a good example. It’s called the Protect Act, but it has&nbsp; that would allow insurance companies to drop coverage of certain expensive diseases from all their policies.So far, Republican proposals&nbsp; what the Affordable Care Act already provides. And University of Pennsylvania law professor Allison Hoffman said Trump’s executive order doesn’t change that.“The language itself guarantees nothing near the protections in the Affordable Care Act, and such sweeping protections are only possible by congressional action, not regulation,” Hoffman said.Trump and other Republicans on the campaign trail have faced repeated questioning about what will happen if the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates the Affordable Care Act. The White House is strongly behind a legal case to declare it unconstitutional. Oral arguments before the court are scheduled for&nbsp;.Indiana University health law professor David Gamage said the executive order is no stopgap should the White House win that argument.“Were the court to hold the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, the executive order would still do nothing, because it has no enforcement power,” Gamage said.Larry Levitt, head of health policy at KFF, a widely used source of neutral health care data, &nbsp;“a pinky promise to protect people with preexisting conditions.”Trump’s critics have said the order runs counter to the administration’s goal of undoing the Affordable Care Act. But as and others point out, there are other ways to guarantee coverage to everyone.Lanhee Chen at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution said high-risk pools remain a popular idea in conservative circles.“Most conservative analysts, for example, have supported a system of well-funded high-risk pools at the state level to provide protections for the impacted population,” Chen said.High-risk pools have been around for decades. With them, the government, rather than a private insurance company, pays for a person’s care. But as with everything in health care, you don’t get something for nothing. State high-risk pools in the past lacked enough money to cover the large number of people with needs.Hoffman said some high-risk pools charged very high premiums, making them unaffordable to many people.Coverage for preexisting conditions is a persistent issue because so many Americans have them or fear having them in the future.KFF estimates that &nbsp;have a preexisting condition that would have led to a denial of coverage in the individual insurance market before the Affordable Care Act took effect.Copy HTMLWe encourage organizations to republish our content, free of charge. Here’s what we ask:You must credit us as the original publisher, with a hyperlink to our khn.org site. If possible, please include the original author(s) and “Kaiser Health News” in the byline. Please preserve the hyperlinks in the story.It’s important to note, not everything on khn.org is available for republishing. If a story is labeled “All Rights Reserved,” we cannot grant permission to republish that item.Have questions? Let us know atThank you for your interest in supporting Kaiser Health News (KHN), the nation’s leading nonprofit newsroom focused on health and health policy. We distribute our journalism for free and without advertising through media partners of all sizes and in communities large and small. We appreciate all forms of engagement from our readers and listeners, and welcome your support.KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). You can support KHN by making a contribution to KFF, a non-profit charitable organization that is not associated with Kaiser Permanente.Click the button below to go to KFF’s donation page which will provide more information and FAQs. Thank you!Go Back

This story also ran on .Protecting people with preexisting medical conditions is an issue that has followed President Donald Trump his entire first term. Now, Trump has signed an executive order that he says locks in coverage regardless of anyone’s health history. “Any health care reform legislation that comes to my desk from Congress must protect the preexisting conditions or I won’t sign it,” Trump said at a &nbsp;signing event.With the executive order, Trump said, “This is affirmed, signed and done, so we can put that to rest.”Health law and health policy experts say Trump has put...

Trump’s Executive Order on Preexisting Conditions Lacks Teeth, Experts Say

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