GOP Obamacare repeal bill betrays key Trump campaign promise

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump stumped hard on promises not to touch Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. There are about 59 million Social Security beneficiaries in the US now, and Medicare provides health coverage to 56 million, and Medicaid 71 million, including 14 million covered under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.

Within the first 70 days days of his presidency, Trump has followed through on another campaign promise, dismantling Obamacare, by promoting a repeal bill. However, the pursuit of that goal has led him to break his promises to fully protect Medicare and Medicaid. The repeal bill makes significant cuts to Medicaid coverage and shrinks Medicaid funding.

Known as the American Health Care Act, the bill would repeal much of the ACA (known as Obamacare) if Congress approves it, including wiping out the Medicaid expansion by removing coverage for an additional 14 million people. This would violate the campaign promise not to cut Medicaid.

“The overriding law means [Medicare] can’t pay out more than it has in its trust fund. This would spell a major cut,” CRFB Senior Policy Director Marc Goldwein told Yahoo Finance recently. “If providers aren’t getting paid on time or get paid less, it’s hard to imagine this doesn’t at least hurt access if not quality or availability of care for seniors.”

“President Trump couldn’t have been more clear on the campaign trail that he would not cut Medicare and Medicaid,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told Yahoo Finance. “Now he’s giving a big hug to Paul Ryan’s plan to slash $880 billion from the Medicaid program, which will hurt people with disabilities, working families, babies, and seniors in nursing homes.”

Yahoo Finance

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