Larry Kudlow, the economics adviser to the Trump campaign, said the Republican plan to replace Obamacare isn’t ideal but does take steps in the right direction of cutting taxes and regulation.
“Nothing in life is perfect,” Kudlow said on cable channel CNBC. “But I think the good should not be the enemy of the perfect in this case. And I think they racked up a pretty good bill.”
House Republicans on Monday published a proposal to unite the party behind a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act and deliver on a central campaign promise. The party and President Donald Trump ran for office on a pledge to repeal and replace the health law.
The proposed plan would end the requirement that most Americans have health coverage or pay a penalty, a provision long derided by Republicans, and a mandate that larger employers provide health insurance to workers, according to The Wall Street Journal. It also would repeal most of the health law’s taxes starting next year and freeze funding in 2020 for the 31 states that expanded Medicaid under the law.
“Getting rid of the mandates -- that's so huge,” said Kudlow, co-author of JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity. “They're going to get rid of the tax increases. That's good for economic growth. It's also good for health care.”
Kudlow also likes the idea of creating a fund to help seriously ill people whose care drives up insurance costs for others.
“Healthy people should not have the same costs as sick people,” he said. “Ryan did a good thing creating these risk pools for the sick people. The U.S. government, federal and state, should take care of the ill people. Just take care of them. If that means a spending subsidy, I'm fine with that.”
President Barack Obama in 2010 signed into law the ACA, the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the formation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. Obamacare sought to provide health coverage to an estimated 45 million uninsured Americans with a system of taxes, subsidies and mandates.
“The collapsing law is driving up health care costs and driving out choices for American families,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan wrote in an opinion for USA Today. “This year alone, premiums have gone up by double digits in 31 states. Choices have dwindled to the point that one out of every three counties in America has just one insurer to choose from.”
The Republican plan introduced this week doesn’t provide estimates of how many people will lose insurance.
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