Bitter pill: Halting insurance subsidies toys with health of poorest

In either another master stroke or episode of senility -- depending from which side of the political fence one peers over -- the president's latest action on health care has resulted in a bipartisan effort to shore up health care for America's poorest insurance buyers.

Last week President Trump implemented a measure that would halt federal payments to insurers that allow those in the lowest tax brackets to purchase their own health insurance at lower rates.

The Senate is moving -- on either side of the aisle -- to reinstate the payments to prevent 6 million people from no longer being able to afford their plans.

Meanwhile, those who would be hardest hit by the stoppage of funding would be the residents of states won by Trump in the presidential election. So it is hard to figure if he was truly intent on smartly applying pressure to the legislative branch to either compromise on scrapping Obamacare or funding his wall, or if he just really doesn't want to pay that money to insurance providers -- the insured be damned.

What is certain is those in the Senate who are clamoring to prevent the funds from being halted -- 19 attorneys general have also signaled their intent to sue to stop the money from being withheld -- or the nation will have 6 million more uninsured sick people showing up at the emergency room instead of their family practitioner.

How's that going to work out for the debt? Either way you slice it, Trump is refusing to budge unless he "gets something he wants," according to national media reports.

So this is either the art of the deal in motion or simply bad medicine.

Time -- and the Senate -- will decide.

Published in Editorials on October 15, 2017 10:09 PM