Joshua Klein -- Hospitals warn Trump, Congress of massive losses with Affordable Care Act repeal

Summary: The Washington Post’s Amy Goldstein reported on December 6, 2016 that U.S. hospital trade groups warned President-elect Trump and leaders in Congress on Tuesday that repealing Obamacare could cost hospitals billions of dollars and cause a public health crisis. Ms. Goldstein reported that these trade groups sent letters dispatched a letter to the president elect, the Speaker of the House, the House minority leader, and the majority and minority leader of the Senate. The letter said that the government should help hospitals avoid massive financial losses if the government overturns Obamacare and creates a lot of people to lose their insurance.  Ms. Goldstein reported that the president of the Federation of American Hospitals, one of the trade groups, said that hospitals could lose an unsettling amount of money if Obamacare was repealed. She reported that about 22 million people could lose their health insurance if Obamacare was overturned. Also, Ms. Goldstein reported that the Speaker of the House wanted to create a transition period to phase out Obamacare but has not said how long that period would last.

Analysis: Amy Goldstein is a reporter for The Washington Post who focuses on health-care policy.  She seems to present the issue in a way that suggest that she is sympathetic to keeping Obamacare in place as it is. Because this article was written in the present and Donald Trump and the Republican Congress members and Senators campaigned on a platform that supported repealing and replacing Obamacare, it appears that she is trying to present an argument against repealing the law. She is pointing out the negative financial consequences t5o hospitals if the law is repealed and not replaced in specific ways. I did not know a lot about the Hospital industry’s interest in Obamacare before reading this article and it sounds like they have a lot of concerns about the law being repealed.  The main point of the article is that there is a financial cost to repealing Obamacare and hospital industry trade associations are warning Donald Trump and congressional leaders that they could disrupt the hospital industry if they repeal the law without careful attention to how they might replace it.  This article has important information because 22 million people gained health insurance through Obamacare and if the law is repealed they could lose their health insurance and also hospitals could lose billions of dollars if the law is repealed.

 

Link to article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hospitals-warn-trump-congress-of-massive-losses-with-affordable-care-act-repeal/2016/12/06/3de2f7de-bbd8-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_hospitals945p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.798f544f1dae