Trump blames Obamacare for boosting big insurance stocks 1700%, only to roll out a plan that would make CEOs pop champagne bottles
With 22 days left for ACA subsidies to expire, Donald Trump was questioned about his healthcare plans again on Monday. As usual, he didn’t have one and instead chose to blame Obamacare for the 100th time.
When a reporter reminded Trump that healthcare premiums will skyrocket for 22 million Americans by January, he immediately responded, “That’s because Obamacare is so bad.” Not because subsidies are ending. Not because Republicans have stalled extension bills. Just “Obamacare bad,” like it’s a magic spell to escape questions.
Trump then repeated several times that insurance companies have become rich under Obamacare, and the Republican plan would prevent that. Calling Obamacare a “setup” to profit insurance companies, he said:
You know the insurance companies, their stock has gone up 1700% in a short period of time… they’re taking in trillions of dollars. I don’t want to pay the insurance companies anything. And I know a lot of them, but they’re owned by the democrats. And the democrats have… Obamacare has a setup to make insurance companies rich.
Let’s sit with that 1700% claim for a second. Stocks of the major health insurance company, UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH), increased 1425.07% since 2010. That’s when the ACA was passed, and the rise is notable, but not 1700%. Additionally, it occurred over a period of fifteen years, not “in a short period of time” like Trump claims. (via LinkedIn)
But even if we believe that these companies are unfairly profiting off common people, even Trump’s own proposal benefits insurers. Almost losing his stream of thought three times mid-sentence, he revealed his brilliant plan to replace Obamacare:
What I’m gonna do is, if the democrats go along with it, which they don’t want to, because they wanna make the insurance companies very rich, okay? I want the money to be paid to the people to go out and buy their own healthcare instead of paying to the insurance companies.
So, Trump’s focus is not to make the insurance companies richer, and he also has a plan for that. Sounds good. But what is his big idea? Send people cash so they can go back to the same private insurance market and pay the same companies again. In short, Trump unveiled a plan that routes the same money straight back to the same companies. And the only person who doesn’t see the contradiction is Trump himself.
The math is the same whether you send the money straight to insurers as subsidies or hand people a voucher and tell them to “go buy their own healthcare.” The cash still flows into the same private insurance pool. And, Trump conveniently forgot to mention that the Obamacare ACA subsidies also gave Americans extended protections. This includes coverage for pre-existing conditions, caps on out-of-pocket expenses, and subsidies that actually lower premiums when Congress funds them.
In essence, his brilliant plan doesn’t eliminate middlemen. It eliminates the only leverage Americans currently have. As one user puts it,
“So instead of paying $900 a month for health insurance (group plan on the ACA) I can pay $1800 for an individual plan. That’s how it works. That’s one reason why the ACA was created.”
Trump thinks that he exposed Obamacare for making insurance companies rich. But all he really exposed was that he doesn’t understand the system he’s trying to dismantle. He didn’t introduce a healthcare plan; he introduced a loop of suffering for Americans.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
