Tom Price, the former Health and Human Services secretary who resigned following a scandal surrounding his rampant jet use, blamed “gotcha politics” for Obamacare supporters taking remarks that he made about the healthcare law’s fine on the uninsured out of context.
“In today’s era of ‘gotcha’ politics, my recent remarks before the World Health Congress about the effects of the individual mandate repeal were taken completely out of context,” Price wrote in an opinion piece in the Hill. “Having made the common-sense observation that absent other reforms, I noted that Obamacare patients will have to bear more of their own healthcare costs as a result.”
Price told a crowd in Washington Tuesday that he believed getting rid of Obamacare’s individual mandate in the Republican tax reform, absent broader reforms, would raise costs and destabilize the law’s exchanges.
He described repealing only the mandate as “nibbling at the side,” adding “there are many, and I’m one of them, who believes that that actually will harm the pool in the exchange market, because you’ll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks within that market.”
In his opinion piece about those comments, he said that even without Congress passing another healthcare bill, he believed that “reforms at the executive level that eliminate artificial constraints to new healthcare coverage options will give Obamacare users more choices at lower costs.”
The fine for going uninsured, known as the individual mandate, will be zeroed out in 2019 in the Republican tax bill that was signed into law by President Trump. The president has has called the mandate the “worst part of Obamacare” and said that gutting the fine was essential to repealing the law. Broader efforts to repeal other parts of Obamacare and replace it with other provisions failed.
Several Democrats who oppose Obamacare repeal seized on Price’s comments as supportive to their argument. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said she was “glad to see former Secretary Price admit the truth.”
Price responded to those comments in his opinion piece and argued that eliminating the individual mandate was a “major victory” and that it had “disproportionately hurt lower-income Americans.” He said he also had supported the American Health Care Act, the GOP-backed legislation that failed in the Senate that would have repealed portions of Obamacare. He said he supported the bill because it would have helped sicker enrollees to be placed into high-risk pools funded by the government.
He said the high cost of coverage had caused some people to delay important life events, such as buying a house, and he praised other moves by the administration to allow people to buy plans that do not follow Obamacare’s mandates. Those plans, including short-term policies and association health plans, are less expensive but come with fewer consumer protections.
