President Trump signed a landmark executive order on Thursday, allowing Americans to finally purchase healthcare across state lines.
This fulfilled campaign promise was signed with the intention of dismantling Obamacare and replacing it with a workable healthcare system.
The order was signed with the intention to expand the choices of Health Insurance available under Obamcare, while more comprehensive and fundamental reforms are stuck in Congress.
The President commented, “The time has come to give Americans the freedom to purchase health insurance across state lines, which will create a truly competitive national marketplace that will bring costs way down and provide far better care.”
The order guides the Secretary of Labor to identify American employers and certain groups who would benefit from being able to purchase healthcare across state lines, and expand access to said plans. This action was intended to make it easier for the employers to come together and give their workers more options at lower rates than what is available under present market conditions.
The executive order further instructs three agencies – the Department of Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Labor to further consider increasing the health care coverages through short term, limited time duration insurances which would not be subjected to the Affordable Care Act’s rules and mandates. This particular type of the insurance usually has very high coverage limits and considerably more providers.
The order further directs the agencies, to make more changes to the Health Reimbursement Arrangements, the employer funded accounts, so that the workers would have much more control and flexibility with spending on their health care and insurance needs.
As per Ed Haislmair, a senior research fellow at Heritage Foundation, the executive orders that are signed is just a beginning of a process, but it could be considered and credited for being a step in the right direction for those who have faced the adverse effects of the ObamaCare plans
“There won’t be any actual changes until they complete the regulatory revision process. An executive order by itself doesn’t change regulations,” He said.
He further added that “Basically it’s a move in the right direction to help people who have seen their choices reduced and costs increased due to Obamacare, particularly many small businesses and many self-employed.”
“There are limits to how much can be done by the administration on its own,” he continued explaining. “Selling insurance across state lines was only going to make a modest difference before Obamacare and, to the extent that Obamacare imposes federal essential health benefits, the effects would be even less today.”
“These are changes the administration is making in terms of interpreting the law, not actually changing law,” he concluded. “The administration is inherently limited in what it can accomplish working within laws that are on the books. There is still a need for Congress to go in and make changes to the law that are more substantive.”