From the outset, former President Obama planned to ram through the Affordable Care Act, which became better known as “Obamacare,” without any Republican input or assistance, because he and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate in 2010 knew they had the congressional majority to get it done. (Related: to keep up with conservative news, visit Conservative.news.)
Now, however, as Republicans attempt to unravel and dismantle the law, President Donald J. Trump is taking a “listen and learn” approach to repeal.
At the White House on Monday, in addition to holding discussions with lawmakers concerning an as-yet unpopular replacement bill, The American Health Care Act, the president also met with Americans who have been victimized by Obamacare, as a way of highlighting why it really needs to go away. (RELATED: HYPOCRISY: Nancy Pelosi now says Americans have a right to know what’s in Obamacare repeal BEFORE it passes.)
As reported by Breitbart News, Americans are continuing to suffer higher premiums, deductibles and less coverage thanks to Obamacare:
The president met nine American citizens Monday who were suffering the financial effects of what he described as the “very, very, failed and failing Obamacare law.”
Trump told the group that he would put into place a better plan that “lowers cost, expands choice, and ensures access for everyone” and promised “more competition and less regulation” in the market place.
“You’ll see rates go down, down, down, and you’ll see plans go up, up, up, you’ll have a lot of choices,” he said.
The president said that it would take a few years to fully unravel and dispatch Obamacare, a mammoth law that spans more than 2,800 pages and involves several federal bureaucracies and layers upon layers of regulations.
Since the law was initially passed in 2010 and then various provisions of it upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, businesses, hospitals, clinics, insurance companies and American consumers have had to adjust to and adopt the law’s myriad of provisions, no matter how financially impractical and damaging. Now, in 2017, insurance companies are bailing left and right from the state-run exchanges the law established (though not all states set one up), premiums are rising dramatically, choices have declined precipitously, and out-of-pocket expenses for most Americans have skyrocketed.
Trump has said the easy thing to do, politically, would be to allow the law to implode. But, he said, that would severely harm tens of millions of Americans, so while it might be advantageous to let Democrats take the heat for Obamacare’s failure, Republicans know the right thing to do is fix what’s broken.
One by one the Americans Trump met with explained the negative effects of Obamacare:
— A Colorado cattle rancher, Carrie Couey, told the president that under Obamacare her health insurance premiums tripled – and this was after multiple insurers stopped offering any health coverage at all.
“Millions of people had great health care they loved,” trump noted. (RELATED: Here Are MANY Broken Obamacare Promises To Help Explain Why Trump And The GOP Need To Repeal This Disaster.)
— Brittany Ivey of Georgia told the confab that her premium for private health insurance had risen 110 percent. Worse, though she was paying an astounding $1,300 per month for coverage, her doctors would not accept the insurance (it was that bad).
“We’re so happy to be seeing it going,” she said. “It’s almost put our family in financial ruin.”
And just think about how many families can’t afford to pay $1,300 a month, especially for lousy coverage.
— Florida attorney Elias Seife said their insurance changed every year since Obamacare was passed and upheld, adding that he had a daughter who has a disability.
“I think the real scenario that this law was supposed to implode…my parents came from communist Cuba, they know what socialism is all about, so I know what socialism is and that’s pretty much what this whole system was meant to have one single provider,” he said.
— Kim Sertich, of Arizona, told Trump that rate increases in her state have been about 116 percent since Obamacare’s inception. She said she lost her plan three times before she opted out of obtaining health insurance altogether, despite the law’s individual mandate.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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