President Donald Trump told the American public that he wants to keep Obamacare, at least to the extent of the provisions that protect individuals with pre-existing conditions and allow 26 years olds to stay on their parent’s plan.
This is, in fact, a ridiculous comment. Most people (myself included) believe that a competent Health Plan would contain these provisions. And they will. But they will be part of a new plan which will be entirely rewritten. No part of Obamacare should be retained. It needs to be repealed in total.
The new replacement for Obamacare can (and should) have provisions for people with pre-existing conditions to get insurance and even keeping 26 year olds on the plan (possibly), but not in the way the law is currently written. Free market pricing will keep overall costs down, and with respect to individuals whose premiums become unaffordable (due to pre-existing conditions, low income, etc) there could be risk-pools and/or subsidies to deal with the issues. The Obamacare method of forced overpayments and intrusively detailed regulation with perverse incentives on every component of health care, has failed. That’s why we’ve been seeing an exodus of insurers; they simply cannot sustain their fiscal health they way the current system is.
Only by replacing the law with one that focuses on free-market solutions can we make progress in fixing our health system to actually help our citizens and in a fiscally sound way.