One step forward would be progress, if sometimes slow progress. But not if the step is only scheduled, in years to come, maybe, if things go according to plan, if the winds don’t change, perhaps.
If something is right, why wait to do it?
The Trump administration is doing what it can to roll back what it can of Obamacare—and not getting much assistance from Congress, either. There’s a plan to loosen benefit requirements of the government-controlled and -regulated and -required and -“or else” Affordable Care Act. The plan might also allow states to look at other states for coverage levels. There’s a whole lot of details to work out, and you know who lives there.
But the president’s people want all these changes pushed back to 2019, if even then.
First, who knows what the political situation will look like in 2019? There’ll be mid-term congressional elections by then. And this president changes his mind—often. Who’s to know what he’ll be thinking in 2019, and who will be advising him? Or running Congress. If a year is a lifetime in politics, this decision has been put off past even then.
Allowing states to offer different levels of health-care coverage that best fit the needs of consumers would be one way to immediately lower the cost of premiums for millions of Americans in Obamacare. So why put it off for years?
This would appear to be a very good idea in the making, even common sense. But it goes to show that even with a Trump administration in place, vowing to reduce government regulations, there is still tremendous pushback from the forces of the status forever quo.
The best way to fight the status quo is to change things soonest, and let ‘em holler. To push off decisions for years is only an invitation to allow the forces of inertia to dig in, and for Obamacare to get its claws into more parts of our lives. So let’s move. Soonest.