Trump has a pen too!

[Robertt S]

This is the best news I have read all day, now maybe those lame-ass deadbeats will finally get around to serving the people that pay their salaries. I wish there was term limits on congressmen and representatives just there is on presidents. I wish those primadonnas had to use the same healthcare system they require the average citizen to use, and without the waivers that congress and their employees receive. I especially like the part about buying insurance across state lines, that in it self will force insurance companies to compete against each other driving prices lower. Health insurance has always enjoyed the ability to monopolize the markets in states.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order to make it easier for Americans to buy bare-bones health insurance plans, using his presidential powers to undermine Obamacare after fellow Republicans in Congress failed to repeal the 2010 law.
Trump issued the executive order aimed at letting small businesses band together across state lines to buy cheaper, less regulated health plans for their employees with fewer benefits. Such new insurance options, however, may not be available until 2019, and the order could face legal challenges from Democratic state attorneys general.
It was Trump’s most concrete step to undo Obamacare since he took office in January promising to dismantle Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of “using a wrecking ball to single-handedly rip apart our healthcare system.”
Republicans call Obamacare, which extended health insurance to 20 million people, a government intrusion into Americans’ healthcare, and have been promising for seven years to scrap it.
Trump’s order aims to give people more access to cheaper plans, which do not cover essential health benefits such as maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, and mental health and addiction treatment. 
Obamacare, known formally as the Affordable Care Act, requires most small business and individual health plans to cover those benefits. 
“DESTROYING EVERYTHING”
“The cost of the Obamacare has been so outrageous, it is absolutely destroying everything in its wake,” Trump said at a White House signing ceremony.

Trump’s order was aimed at making it easier for small businesses to join together as associations across state lines.
Unlike large employers that can create their own health plans because their work forces are big enough to spread risk - mitigating the effect of individuals with serious illnesses - small employers have few options to offer reasonably priced health coverage.
Allowing small employers to band together in associations is meant to give them options similar to larger companies. The White House also said the associations would give employers more leverage to negotiate with insurance companies in purchasing health insurance plans for employees.
Some of the business groups that the order is aimed at, including franchise organizations and retailers - which generally have large number of hourly employees - said they are interested and want to be part of the rule-making process at the Department of Labor, but cautioned that there are many details to tackle.

“It’s not something we’ll be able to open a suitcase tomorrow and be in business with. There are a lot of issues to be worked out and to consider,” said Neil Trautwein, vice president of health care policy at the National Retail Federation.
A spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business, the largest small-business association in the country, said it would be watching to see “how the regulatory architecture develops” and make a determination in the future.
Small businesses have been among the biggest critics of Obamacare.
The order also sought to change an Obama-era limit on the time span that people can use short-term health insurance plans, which are cheaper but cover few medical benefits. Those plans are currently limited to three months.
Joseph Antos, a healthcare expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, said he did not believe the order would have much of an impact because employers from regions with lower healthcare costs, like Iowa, would not want to join up with those from regions with higher costs.

Experts also questioned whether Trump has the legal authority to expand association health plans.
Democratic state attorneys general have said they will sue if Trump tries to destroy Obamacare. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Trump’s executive order is just another step toward imploding the Affordable Care Act.
“It should come as no surprise that California is prepared to fight in court to protect affordable healthcare for its people,” Becerra said.
The association health plans could attract young, healthy people and leave a sicker, more expensive patient pool in the individual insurance markets created under Obamacare, driving up premiums.

The American Hospital Association said Trump’s order “could destabilize the individual and small group markets, leaving millions of Americans who need comprehensive coverage to manage chronic and other pre-existing conditions, as well as protection against unforeseen illness and injury, without affordable options.”
Small health insurers and state insurance regulators also criticized Trump’s move. 
Hospital stocks edged lower in Thursday trading, with HCA Healthcare down 1.7 percent and Tenet Healthcare down 4.4 percent. Medicaid insurers also fell with Centene off 2.5 percent. 
Trump has taken a number of other steps to weaken or undermine Obamacare. He has not committed to making billions of dollars of payments to insurers guaranteed under Obamacare, prompting many to exit the individual market or hike premiums for 2018. 
The administration also halved the open enrollment period, which begins Nov. 1, slashed the Obamacare advertising and outreach budget, and allowed broad religious and moral exemptions to the law’s mandate that employers provide coverage for women’s birth control.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-trump/frustrated-by-congress-trump-signs-order-to-weaken-obamacare-idUSKBN1CH24C

[JohnB]

I like the word "Impeachment". 

[Willy The Londoner]

I like the word "Impeachment".

Should have remained an English Colony I say.

Willy

[Robertt S]

I like the word "Impeachment".

After his predecessors 8 year unbridled reign of trying to destroy race relations and causing untold amounts of civil unrest against law enforcement, I really don't believe Trump has to worry about being impeached. Although, given the amount of hatred the radical left and current corrupt politicians have for him I do believe they would take him out given the slightest chance just to preserve their corrupt careers and save their own political ass. Even the so-called republicans are a bunch of useless twits!

 For eight years screaming give us the power and we WILL Repeal Obamacare, well they got the power and now they are screwed because they have to back up those promises that they never intended to implement to begin with, bringing their true colors and agendas to light. Sorta like the old saying about a dog chasing a car and not knowing what to do with it once they have caught it!  Both parties overall with the exception of a FEW good members on each side are a bunch of professional liars and scam artists who are there not to serve the citizens but there to line their own pockets.

 The best thing that resulted from Trump's election was that it proved just how corrupt our political system and the so-called mainstream media is. A more fitting job description of them would be low life thieves and their propaganda outlets.

[Robertt S]

Should have remained an English Colony I say.

Willy

From the looks of current affairs in England and the EU in general, the so-called Colony may be the last hope for Englishmen and those of Christian faith. You had better hurry and get your application in before the lines get to long! 

[Willy The Londoner]

Why not bring back McCarthyism?
The question could be 'Are you or have you ever a poster on Tweets'

Willy

[Willy The Londoner]

Should have remained an English Colony I say.

Willy

From the looks of current affairs in England and the EU in general, the so-called Colony may be the last hope for Englishmen and those of Christian faith. You had better hurry and get your application in before the lines get to long! 

I watch at a distance as I relax in the most progressive country in the World.

Willy

[Robertt S]

Why not bring back McCarthyism?
The question could be 'Are you or have you ever a poster on Tweets'

Willy

The McCarthyism is covered on the DS-260 form for the immigrant visa application.

As far as Tweets, the former president is the one that decided to use social media to his advantage so its tit for tat on that one.

[Robertt S]

Should have remained an English Colony I say.

Willy

From the looks of current affairs in England and the EU in general, the so-called Colony may be the last hope for Englishmen and those of Christian faith. You had better hurry and get your application in before the lines get to long! 

I watch at a distance as I relax in the most progressive country in the World.

Willy

I can not argue that point with you because China has led the world in progress over the last 10 years.

[JohnB]

it's a can of worms Robert 

Impeachment.

why not? the republicans impeached Bill Clinton for lying to congress about Monica. I think Bill & Monica made
for a lovely couple.


 
kind of odd.. when Bill left office, our national deficit was reduced. And, was projected to be in it's entirely by 2012.
No war. So, may I ask, what happened to our post Cold War dividend? what the fuck did the republicans do to it?
what the fuck did the republicans do to our country?

now, we find ourselves on the shit end of whatever Trump does..  America, now a pariah on the world stage.
we, unsure of ourselves. we, unsure of what tomorrow may bring.

blame.
blame Obama.
blame all.
blame everyone. 
he stands on the bully pulpit, as if a Mussolini.. 
spouting his self proclaimed IQ, yet ignorant of all things of concern. the fires gets closer.
 
yet again, what the fuck did the republicans do to our country?