Against a backdrop of a month-long government shutdown, millions of American consumers are poised to choose their health care coverage for the next year as the open enrollment period gets underway. For millions of families, however, this is an occasion more for dread than excitement, due to dramatically higher prices.
On Thursday night, Donald Trump published an item to his social media platform that suggested he is aware of the problem, but that failed to present much of a solution. The missive read in its entirety:
As I have said for years, OBAMACARE IS A DISASTER! Rates are going through the roof for really bad healthcare!!! Do something Democrats!!!
He managed to say quite a bit in three sentences, so let’s unpack this.
First, the Republican claimed that the Affordable Care Act is a “disaster.” That’s plainly false: The ACA hasn’t just worked effectively for years, it also reached new levels of popularity with the American public over the summer. (Support for the reform law reached 66% in June, making it more than 20 points more popular than the president who hates it and raising the question of whether the president is just jealous.)
Second, Trump said coverage costs are “going through the roof for really bad healthcare.” The first part of this is true — consumers are facing sticker shock, though leading Republican officials have spent recent weeks suggesting this isn’t a big deal — but the idea that the care itself is “really bad” is baseless. People raise concerns all the time about costs and access, but there’s no evidence to suggest Americans are dissatisfied with the services provided by medical professionals themselves.
At the heart of the matter, however, was the president’s closing appeal: “Do something Democrats!!!”
Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House, most of the nation’s gubernatorial offices, most of the nation’s state legislative chambers and the U.S. Supreme Court — but the president want Democrats, who have minimal power and even less influence in the nation’s capital, to fix the health care problem that Trump and his GOP allies have helped create.
As bizarre as the president’s appeal was, he’s in luck. Democratic leaders are, in fact, prepared to “do something” about the issue. Indeed, as the government shutdown drags on, mainly because of the rising health care costs that too many Republicans are inclined to ignore, Democrats continue to show up for work on Capitol Hill, pleading with GOP officials to negotiate a bipartisan solution.
So it’s now up to Trump and his party to “do something.”
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
