December 5 is the deadline to submit comments on the Trump Administration's recent action to gut the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, which requires employer-sponsored health plans to ensure women's access to free, effective contraception. This decision, announced in October in two Interim Final Rules, threatens serious harm to American children, because of the risk that women who lack access to contraception will become pregnant, contract Zika, and unwittingly transmit the virus to their developing fetus.
Read moreRepublicans Failed Because They Have No Idea What Kind of Health Care They Actually Want
Not so long ago, much of the Republican Party stood united in a vision for health care.
Read moreCan Trump Simply Stop Paying Subsidies to Insurance Companies?
In recent days, President Donald Trump announced, via Twitter, that "If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!" He was presumably referring first to cost-sharing reduction subsidy payments to insurance companies required by the Affordable Care Act and, second, to the fact that members of Congress and their staff are required to buy health insurance on the ACA market instead of being allowed on the federal employee health plan. However, unlike most people who purchase insurance via the marketplace, Congressional staffers still receive an employer subsidy. Ending subsidy payments to insurance companies could be catastrophic to the market - so can Trump simply stop paying them?
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