Trump unveils his own US health care plan
US President Donald Trump has unveiled a healthcare plan that promises to lower drug prices and insurance premiums, make prices more transparent and hold insurance companies accountable.
While announcing details of the “Great Health Plan,” the administration also called on Congress to pass legislation regulating the most preferred nation drug pricing policy.
The White House said Trump’s plan would consolidate efforts to lower drug prices by tying prices to the lowest price paid by other countries.
Its cornerstone is a proposal to bypass the federal government and send money directly to individuals for health savings accounts so they can handle insurance on their own.
Some Democrats dismissed the idea as a trivial alternative to covering the high costs of health care.
“The government will pay the money directly to you,” Trump said in the video recording released by the White House to announce the plan.
“It goes to you and then you take the money and buy your own health care.”
It was not immediately clear whether any lawmakers in Congress were trying to implement the Republican president’s plan.
The idea echoes one circulating among Republican senators last year.
Democrats have largely rejected the idea, saying the accounts would not be enough to cover costs for most consumers.
Enhanced tax credits that helped reduce insurance costs for the vast majority of Affordable Care Act enrollees expire at the end of 2025, even as Democrats forced a 43-day government shutdown over the issue.
Republican senator Bernie Moreno is leading a bipartisan group of 12 senators trying to draft a compromise that would extend those subsidies for two years and impose new limits on who can receive them.
This proposal would create a health savings account option that Trump and Republicans would favor for a second year.
Trump said Thursday that his plan would aim to lower premiums by fully funding cost-sharing reductions, or CSRs, a type of financial assistance that insurers give to low-income “Obamacare” enrollees in silver-tier or mid-level plans.
with AP
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