UCLA Expert Explains Why Trump Healthcare Reform Won't Work
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — President Trump signed an executive order for health care reform Thursday allowing some people to pay less for insurance, but others will pay more. Now people can buy health insurance across state lines. The president says there's no cost to the government. Critics say it will destabilize insurance markets and the elderly and very sick patients will pay more.
Several state officials, including ones in California, say they will sue. They say it's not legal for the president to side-step state regulations.
How will the health care changes impact people in California? Not good says a UCLA professor.
Nadereh Pourat, director of research at the UCLA Health Policy Research Center, says the executive order Trump signed Thursday will not work.
"I will sign an executive order taking the first steps to providing millions of Americans with Obamacare relief," Trump announced.
"I'm not sure what that means," Pourat said. "Obamacare is a relief, and taking it away is going to be lack of relief. This is not a new idea. We lived it and competition didn't work. We had millions of people not insured, millions of people could not afford coverage. We know it didn't work, I don't know why it would magically work today."
"Increase choice," Trump said.
"Increases choice of junk policies, Pourat said. "Increase access to lower-priced high-quality health care options? You cannot get cheap insurance policies that provide great coverage, it's impossible."
Professor Pourat says the president's executive order provides a loophole that would allow people to buy health insurance policies across state lines that don't offer coverage for unexpected medical conditions:
"You don't expect to have breast cancer and you have breast cancer that's not something that you plan on having, but then you look at your policy and it's not worth the paper it's written on."
The president and his supporters say Obamacare is failing in many parts of the country, leaving people with few options and they say this executive order will give them access to affordable care.
