President Donald Trump ushered in a new age of healthcare when he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017 and issued an executive order to lessen the economic burden of the ACA.
Clinical Spine Surgery's February 2017 issue includes an article titled "The Beginning of Trumpcare" by Alok D. Sharan, MD, and William E. Aaronson, PhD, covering key thoughts on healthcare moving forward.
1. President Trump has mentioned retaining the basic principles of the ACA that are well-liked, including:
• Universal access to affordable health insurance
• Preventing insurance companies from denying customers based on pre-existing conditions
• Allowing individuals to stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26
2. President Trump's campaign has released limited information about their proposals for replacing the ACA, but the positions released indicate he'll support "policies in line with the business principles that have made him successful — ensuring an adequate amount of competition and choice for the consumer as a mechanism to improve care."
President Trump also mentioned:
• Stopping the individual and employer mandate
• Giving insurance companies the opportunity to sell insurance across state lines
• Removing minimum coverage standard restrictions
• Converting Medicaid to block grants
• Potentially obtaining pharmaceuticals from Canada
3. Free market principles are the cornerstone of President Trump's philosophy, according to the article, and he could use those principles to achieve more efficient healthcare delivery. He supports providing information to consumers and allowing them to make decisions about their care.
"Only those suppliers who understand what is of value to the customer and how that value can be delivered succeed while others tend to diminish due to decreasing volumes," Drs. Sharan and Aaronson wrote.
4. The health insurance exchanges in the ACA sought to allow consumers to price compare and purchase the best insurance plan. However, there wasn't enough incentive for young and healthy people to purchase expensive insurance, even with the individual mandate.
President Trump's plan promotes establishing high risk pools at the state level to accommodate individuals who have pre-existing conditions estimating that could have a "trickledown effect of lower premiums" for individuals with lower risk.
5. Price transparence is key to President Trump's healthcare plan, promoting more active participation in purchasing and consuming healthcare.
6. The current proposals to replace the ACA don't address medical malpractice laws or defensive medicine, despite evidence that "tremendous savings can be achieved with effective malpractice reform."