Wednesday, July 26, 2017

It's STILL Obamacare

 Trump acts as though he was left with a mess concerning Obamacare.
Sure, the current system does suck but it's his job to fix it.
That's what a President does.

In 1999 Trump proposed a 14.25% tax on the wealthy to pay for for a universal health care system.
In his 2000 book  The America We Deserve, Trump stated, '...I'm a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one...', concerning a single-payer program.

By 2011 Trump had already seemed to shy away from his previous beliefs in a single-payer system in favor of a blended system which was pretty similar to the current Obamacare. He favored a universal 'market based' plan that would offer a range of options.

But in a 2015 exchange with Letterman, Trump cited Scotland's healthcare system as being ideal.
The thing is, Scotland has a well-funded single-payer system.

 Since 2006 the American Medical Association seems to have committed to a plan that would include coverage for all - including the support for the American Care Act in 2010.
It was one of the very few times the AMA had supported a universal healthcare plan since the American Association of Labor Legislation proposed a plan back in 1914.

When Rockefeller and other philanthropists proposed a plan - the AMA branded the concept as 'socialized medicine'.
When Henry Kaiser wanted to open his not-for-profit hospitals to the general public the AMA lobbied against it.
When Truman proposed universal healthcare, once again the AMA opposed the concept.
When the Johnson administration was implementing Medicare/Medicaid - the AMA lobbied against that as well.
Clintoncare? Nope. The AMA was against that too.

 Trump ran on the promise of being the outsider, the firebrand, the people's champ.
Trump said that he would fight against Wall St, cronyism and nepotism.
Trump was not supposed to be influenced by political insiders.
 But then something happened.
Reality.
Trump seems to have failed his grammar school civic lessons in that he thinks that the Presidency is a dictatorship.
Trump doesn't seem to understand that the checks and balances are in place to protect our country from egomaniacs like himself.
The thing Trump should do is to acknowledge the difficulty Obama faced in passing the first real legislation regarding universal healthcare in almost fifty years.
Trump should give his predecessor props for using his social capital to lay the groundwork for a program that will ultimately end up being a single-payer plan for all.
Any new legislation improving upon the existing Obamacare will ultimately be seen as just another step forward, not as a whole new thing.

In the end Obamacare will be seen as a seminal turn in the way America covers its citizens' health.
And for that, Trump should be grateful.



1 comment:

brohammas said...

We can't expect anything out of Trump other than what he has put on public display since the mid 1980's. He is what he has always been.

Same goes for Congress.