Trump favours keeping parts of Affordable Care Act
14 Nov 2016
Only days following a national campaign in which he committed to scrap president Obama's signature health care law, Donald J Trump indicated that he was not averse to retaining parts of the programme.
Trump signalled that he would like to keep two of the most popular benefits of the Affordable Care Act, one that forced insurers to cover people with pre-existing health conditions and another that allowed parents to cover children under their plans into their mid-20s.
He told The Wall Street Journal that he was reconsidering his stance after meeting with Obama on Thursday.
Over 100,000 Americans bought health insurance under the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, which marked the biggest turnout yet during this year's sign-up period. It also underline the fact that millions of people now depended on the law for coverage.
Also Trump outlined, new plans on his presidential transition website this week that did not quite line up with what he had proposed during the campaign. He also added ideas that seemed to run more in line with the mainstream Republican agenda.
The new plans made no mention of reining in high drug prices, which Trump had advocated for months, and contained new language about modernising Medicare, a potential nod to Congressional efforts to give people vouchers toward buying private health insurance.
''Health care is shaping up as a priority for the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress,'' said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which closely tracks health policy, The New York Times reported. ''But we still have very little detail about what that really means.''
Meanwhile, divisions in Republican ranks have emerged over Obamacare with some who want to do away with it is right away and others who favour a gradual phaseout over fears of the high political costs of throwing 20 million Americans off their health plans virtually overnight.
''Either Obamacare will be amended, or repealed and replaced,'' Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.
Trump's statement added more confusion on how the Republican party would move forward with its campaign pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare, according to commentators.
