When the subject of health care comes up, terms like “Trumpcare” and “Obamacare” often do too. These names refer to enacted or attempted health care legislation under President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama, respectively.
Trumpcare is most often associated with the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which was the initial health care legislation introduced by the Trump administration in 2017.
There have been two additional health care bills introduced since 2017, neither of which have ultimately been successful in becoming law.
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President Trump’s health care legislation has largely targeted the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is also called Obamacare.
President Trump campaigned on a platform to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, which referred to repealing the ACA and replacing it with a bill of his own.
Trumpcare (the American Health Care Act) was introduced in 2017, but it did not become a law.
This bill passed through the House of Representatives but was voted down by a Republican-controlled Senate.
Below is a brief summary of some of the American Health Care Act’s features.
After the AHCA failed to pass in the Senate, the Trump Administration proposed two additional health care reform bills.
The Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) was a revised edition of the AHCA and represented the second attempt at installing Trumpcare.
This bill was similar to the AHCA but kept some of the features of Obamacare, such as tax provisions to help pay for low-income insurance premiums.
The BCRA was never voted on in its original form as it became clear the bill would not pass Congress due to opposition from several Republican senators.
The Health Care Freedom Act (HCFA) was dubbed the “skinny repeal” because it aimed to only eliminate the individual and employer mandates included in Obamacare, as opposed to a complete repeal of the ACA.
The HCFA was rejected in the Senate after three Republican senators (along with all Senate Democrats) voted against it.
After three versions of Trumpcare failed to move forward in a Republican-controlled House and Senate in 2017, Democrats regained control of the House after the 2018 midterm elections.
Without the support needed to pass a bill that would repeal and replace Obamacare, President Trump turned to other measures to chip away at the ACA.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is the most notable of those efforts.
This tax reform bill was passed by President Trump in late 2017. It included the elimination of the tax penalty required for those who did not maintain health insurance, otherwise known as the individual mandate that served as the foundation of Obamacare.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that a full repeal of the ACA would increase Medicare spending by $802 billion between 2016 and 2025.1
The increased spending would center mostly around higher payments to health care providers and Medicare Advantage plans.
With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives in 2019, President Trump has indicated that he would likely wait until after the 2020 presidential election to take another aim at health care reform.²
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Christian Worstell is a senior Medicare and health insurance writer with MedicareAdvantage.com. He is also a licensed health insurance agent. Christian is well-known in the insurance industry for the thousands of educational articles he’s written, helping Americans better understand their health insurance and Medicare coverage.
Christian’s work as a Medicare expert has appeared in several top-tier and trade news outlets including Forbes, MarketWatch, WebMD and Yahoo! Finance.
Christian has written hundreds of articles for MedicareAvantage.com that teach Medicare beneficiaries the best practices for navigating Medicare. His articles are read by thousands of older Americans each month. By better understanding their health care coverage, readers may hopefully learn how to limit their out-of-pocket Medicare spending and access quality medical care.
Christian’s passion for his role stems from his desire to make a difference in the senior community. He strongly believes that the more beneficiaries know about their Medicare coverage, the better their overall health and wellness is as a result.
A current resident of Raleigh, Christian is a graduate of Shippensburg University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
If you’re a member of the media looking to connect with Christian, please don’t hesitate to email our public relations team at Mike@tzhealthmedia.com.
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