Today’s Executive Order Could Make Health Care Less Affordable
<p>President Trump’s newest executive order will expand access to short-term health plans and association plans, which would skirt many of the Affordable Care Act’s consumer protections.</p><p>Both of these policies could encourage healthy people to buy skimpy health insurance that won’t protect them from high out-of-pocket expenses if they get sick. Increasing access to short-term and association health plans could siphon off healthy individuals from traditional health insurance, driving up premiums and putting the market at risk. Association health plans also have a long history of subjecting enrollees to fake insurance and other kinds of fraud.</p>
<p>For more, see <em>To the Point</em> posts on the potential impact of <a href="/blog/2017/president-trumps-executive-order-can-association-health-plans-accomplish-what-congress">association health plans</a> and <a href="/blog/2017/new-executive-order-expanding-access-short-term-health-plans-bad-consumers-and-individual">short-term health plans</a> by researchers at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, as well as Mila Kofman’s “<a href="/publications/issue-briefs/2003/aug/health-insurance-scams-how-government-responding-and-what">Health Insurance Scams: How Government Is Responding and What Further Steps Are Needed</a>.” </p>