While in Charlotte, North Carolina for a campaign stop, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order called the America First Healthcare Plan. Since his administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn Obamacare in full, this is an important step to protect those with pre-existing conditions.

Along with building the wall and cutting taxes, repealing and replacing Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) was one of the key promises Trump made during his 2016 campaign. Naively, he believed the Congressional Republican claims that they had plans. They didn’t. Not only that, they were a bunch of squishes when it came to backing President Trump. I mean, they were total squishes. The Republicans held the Presidency, Senate and House in January, 2017 when Trump was inaugurated. The definition of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:

As a result, when President Trump took office in 2017, average individual market health insurance premiums in states using HealthCare.gov had already doubled when compared to 2013, the year before Obamacare’s main regulations took effect. Average premiums went up by another 26 percent in 2018.

At the same time individual market premiums were spiking out of control, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) data show a substantial enrollment drop among unsubsidized people on the individual market who do not receive federal premium tax credits. In just two years, from 2016 to 2018, unsubsidized enrollment declined by 2.5 million people, a 40 percent drop.

As someone who buys her own healthcare and isn’t subsidized, I can tell you buying healthcare insurance sucks bigly.

Democrats have been screaming that people with pre-existing conditions will be left uncovered to die by any Republican plan.

Watch here as President Trump announces his America First Healthcare Plan:

The outlines of the America First Healthcare Plan are available on the WhiteHouse.gov website. This Executive Order promises to ensure coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and invest in Alzheimer’s, pediatric cancer and sickle-cell anemia research. It also promises to cut red tape. I am not sure what they mean by that, but compliance costs are a huge part (along with medical malpractice insurance) of driving up medical care costs. I have personally negotiated costs with my primary care physician and it generally lowers the cost by 30%.

From the White House site:

President Trump has expanded the availability of affordable healthcare options like Association Health Plans, Health Reimbursement Arrangements, and short-term, limited duration plans.

President Trump will give Americans more flexibility in how and where they receive care by investing in telehealth and permanently expanding seniors’ access to telehealth services.

These sound like great ideas. How did the Democrats respond to the America First Healthcare Plan? You know. Speaker of the House and noted blowout enthusiast, Nancy Pelosi released the following statement:

“President Trump’s bogus executive order on pre-existing conditions isn’t worth the paper it’s signed on. It is an insult to every family with someone with a pre-existing condition that President Trump thinks he can get away with this farce while he races a justice onto the Supreme Court to strike down the lifesaving protections enshrined into law by the Affordable Care Act.

“For his entire Administration, President Trump has used every tool and every chance he gets to weaken or rip away protections for people with pre-existing conditions. If President Trump cared at all about people with pre-existing conditions, he would drop his lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic.

Well, Nan, you could do another show and tear it up like you did to the State of the Union Address.

Chuck Schumer weighed in too:

President Trump is lying to you about his “executive order.”

Protections for pre-existing conditions are the law.

The threat to these protections is from President Trump and the Republicans suing to end them.

We’re fighting to stop it.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) September 25, 2020

Those of us paying for our own insurance, and worrying every day, do not need to be lectured by members of Congress who insulated themselves from Obamacare back in 2013. From the Wall Street Journal back in 2013:

This is the height of hypocrisy, and worse, a trampling of the Founders’ code of equal application of the law. Having forced a health law on the American people, the White House and Democrats now seek to insulate themselves from the noxious portions of the law, and from the implementation struggles, indecision and uncertainty that many other Americans face today.

In other words, Congress’s health-care premiums will not rise, but yours may. Members of Congress will be able to afford to keep their health-insurance plan, but you may be kicked off yours. They will be able to afford to keep their doctors, but you may have to find a new one.

My Doctor quit right after Obamacare was signed. Obamacare is an awful mess that, unless completely repealed will lead to rationing of care and continually rising costs. I am more than willing to give the America First Healthcare Plan a look see. I just wish that our elected leaders would earn their pay and do something.

Featured Image: Marco Verch/Flickr.com/Cropped/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)