Trump Obamacare Executive Orders: An Analysis and Opinion

This is a long analysis, so if you’d like to read the key summary, here you go:

It’s kind of like this. You have two problems in your single engine plane that is magically being kept afloat even though it really is not fit for flying. The reason it is not fit for flying is the government has created regulations that cause you to point the ailerons always down, as well as regulations that don’t allow you to attach a propeller to your plane.

The plane is being held up in the air by a giant jumbo liner that’s about four times as expensive to fly as the single engine plane you have. That would be all the subsidies in the system.

Along comes Donny with his executive orders that take away the jumbo plane and allow you to add the prop. What happens? Well, the plane shoots right towards the ground. Everyone aboard the plane is screaming for their very lives. Then along comes the next President, or maybe a veto-proof congress, and they say, hey, see what we told you? You need government.

This is why it is evil to take government out of healthcare. The plane will crash. Tell you what – let’s make a bigger jumbo liner to carry this plane and for the love of humanity, get that freaking propeller off the plane.

The people in the plane rejoice that they have been saved by the government, not realizing that the fuel exhaust from the jumbo liner above them is seeping into the single engine plane’s cabin and everyone on that plane is slowly being poisoned to death.

Trump’s Obamacare Executive Orders, both what has already taken place and what is projected to take place, threaten to end former President Obama’s signature piece of legislation. There is no doubt, however, that every effort will be made by the supporters of Obamacare to nullify Trump’s executive orders through the courts.

First, I will outline the gist of Trump’s executive orders targeting Obamacare, specifically the ones that open up competition across state borders and end subsidization of insurance companies. Then, I will highlight briefly the manner in which the MSM, the propaganda wing of what is now the Deep State (because they don’t have one of their own sitting on the crown), is working to advance the narrative of doom surrounding these executive orders.

Next, I will talk about the history of executive orders, and how we seem to believe we are finding ourselves increasingly subject to these orders not so much in terms of the numbers of executive orders, but the profound affect these orders are now having on daily human action.

Finally, I will talk a bit about the lack of any side of this issue actually going after the root of the problem with healthcare in America today.

Opening State Borders

The first Executive Order happened yesterday, October 12, 2017, with the signing of an executive order that would effectively open the state borders, ironically, to out-of-state competition among insurance providers. In addition to that, the executive order would also allow for less comprehensive plans to be created, as well as allow for healthcare associations to more easily form.

Trump said of the executive order that it “directs the Department of Health and Human Services, the Treasury, and the Department of Labor, to take action to increase competition, increase choice, and increase access to lower-priced, high-quality health care options … and people will have great, great health care.”

He added, “With these actions, we are moving toward lower costs and more options in the health care market, and taking crucial steps toward saving the American people from the nightmare of Obamacare.”

This executive order is being called the “Rand Paul plan” by some, who is alleged to have been the architect, or at least one of the main influencers of this action by President Trump.

Trump said, regarding not waiting any more for congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, “Since I became president of the United States, I just keep hearing repeal and replace, repeal, replace, well, we’re starting that process. And we’re starting it in a very positive manner.

The executive order touches on regulations written after the law had been passed. In other words, it touches on the 20,000 pages of regulations, not the 2,000 pages of actual legislation. This executive order will not fully take effect, even under the most optimal circumstances, any sooner than 6 months, though the mere fact that this order is out there could immediately affect the healthcare marketplace (if you can call it a marketplace at this point in American history).

More than likely, if the order stands, the changes will not fully be seen until 2019.

Ending Subsidies

The second executive order promises to end subsidization of healthcare insurance providers. Under Obamacare, and through former President Obama’s executive orders, the healthcare insurance providers received subsidies from the Federal government to ostensibly pay for people who couldn’t afford the mandated coverage.

The degree to which healthcare insurance providers profited from those subsidies is not known, but one can only surmise that this subsidization was a profit-maker for the insurance companies, that, after all, helped write the law, as well as the regulations.

This executive order could have a much more immediate impact on the healthcare marketplace (such as it is). In 2018, the subsidies were expected to total around $9 billion. The insurance companies have immediately warned that cutting off these subsidies will “force” them to significantly raise premiums, as well as “force” them to pull out of the insurance exchanges created by Obamacare, or, the Affordable Care Act.

It should be noted that almost all of these insurance exchanges were failing before this executive order was even proposed. By 2016, just 3 years after Obamacare took effect, only 7 of the 23 exchanges were still in existence.

It should also be noted that since 2013, the year before Obamacare took effect, insurance premiums have been skyrocketing, to the tune of 99% for individuals and 140% for families. This increase does not include the rise in deductibles.

The White House is taking an approach that they do not believe the subsidies are even lawful. The White House stated, “The government cannot lawfully make the cost-sharing reduction payments……Congress needs to repeal and replace the disastrous Obamacare law and provide real relief to the American people.”

Trump’s Executive Orders Targeting Obamacare to Face Legal Pushback

The second part of the Trump plan (the ending of insurance subsidies) to either dismantle Obamacare with Executive Orders, or force congress to come up with a plan to replace Obamacare, will most likely face the most immediate legal threat. The Progressive Pit Bull and partisan shill pretending to be a neutral New York State Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman, has pledged to bring suit immediately should Trump cancel subsidies, subsidies that were created by an executive order, and are still in the process of being litigated in the courts.

He’s not alone. Other bastions of full-on Progressive Statism such as California have also promised to enter into the legal fray to protect the confiscation of funds from one group of people to be filtered through a money-making scheme benefiting the owners and managers of the coercive enterprise, the state, and their allies, the insurance companies, before allowing some of it to actually benefit the people the subsidies are ostensibly intended to benefit.

There is also no doubt that states will also sue the Trump administration over the first order, specifically suing him over his ‘right’ to change healthcare plans through executive order. There is also little doubt that healthcare insurance companies will be, at least indirectly, funding whatever politicians or interest groups are willing to challenge the opening of state borders to competition. There is nothing more fearful to a fascist corporation (one that exists thanks in large part to government protection and subsidization) than naked, unregulated competition.

The litigation could go on for years, and the outcome will be determined largely by the political persuasion of the makeup of whatever courts assume to be able to define ‘Rule of Law’ as it applies to the Trump executive orders.

The MSM cover for Obamacare

As I have said in past articles and videos, the Mainstream media is essentially a state agency. Right now, I have been using the term “Deep State,” to describe them. The reason I do this is the person sitting in the oval office, while he is one of them, has kind of gone rogue. In my opinion, Trump is the visible fruit of a real shakeup behind the curtain, where the real owners and managers of the coercive enterprise of America are vying for supreme power.

Trump, I believe, represents a faction that wishes to usurp the old faction. But, lest you kid yourself, let me assure you that the end goal of the Trump faction is the same as the Obama-Bush faction, to control the factors, even the people (especially the people) that could affect their hold on power.

So, when I use the term Deep State, I am referring to the parts of the State apparatus that are still strongly aligned with the old faction and are doing everything they can to destroy these challengers to the old faction’s supremacy over the coercive enterprise known as the United States of America.

To illustrate the point, I am making about the role the MSM will play in attempting to turn public opinion further against Trump and, specifically his executive orders that, if carried out, do effectively gut Obamacare, all I have to do is take an excerpt from an article written in the New York Times, an article that is ostensibly NOT an opinion piece, but an information piece (fyi, you’re reading an OPINION piece right now, but I’m not hiding that fact from you).

“The Affordable Care Act has expanded private insurance to millions of people through the creation of marketplaces, also known as exchanges, where people can purchase plans, in many cases using government subsidies to offset the cost. It also required that plans offered on the exchanges include a specific set of benefits, including hospital care, maternity care and mental health services, and it prohibited insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.”

The Affordable Care Act has forced millions to take healthcare plans that are burdening them with onerous costs and offering little benefit in exchange. What you got from the writers of this article was pretty much the Obama propaganda press release statement on what the Obama team wanted you to believe Obamacare really is.

The paragraph was inserted in an alleged straight-news piece and worded in such a way that you accept as fact the opinion that Obamacare was a net boon for American, when, in fact, like anything government touches, there were winners and losers in Obamacare.

Just take the headline of the piece I am quoting from, “Trump to Scrap Critical Health Care Subsidies, Hitting Obamacare Again.” The word “critical” there next to the word “health” is not by accident. We all understand what the condition “critical” means in health, it means near-death. It invokes sympathy, concern. The ostensible straight news piece, right from the start, is playing upon subliminal emotions to create fear, anger, grief over the Trump executive order before you even learn the facts of the orders.

No, I won’t link to the article because I don’t link to fake news sites, but you can google that title and read the piece for yourself.

Some of the other titles from the MSM when you google “Trump Obamacare Executive Order” include-

Trump begins Obamacare dismantling with executive order – CNN.com

Frustrated by Congress, Trump signs order to weaken Obamacare- Reuters

Trump’s Obamacare executive order creates new problems …CNBC

Experts Say Trump Order Could Upend Health Care System – NBC …

Now, remember, the titles cited above are from ostensible “straight news” pieces, not opinion pieces (like the one you are reading right now). Were they opinion pieces, I would have little issue with them. But the MSM is far more effective at planting the narratives in their target audience’s heads by doing it within the realm of ‘straight news’ than they would be if they did it in the realm of overtly opinion pieces.

Straight news dialogue gives it that matter-of-fact veneer that allows actual opinions to come off as simple fact, enabling the MSM to inject opinions into the non-critical brain as facts, ‘facts’ intended to mold you to react the way the MSM wants you to react. In this case, the MSM wants you to believe Donald J Trump just signed executive orders that will kill the sick and the poor and dump the elderly and orphans down a sewer filled with STD-infected sharks.

Executive Order Kingship

The next thing you are going to hear (are already hearing) is how President Trump is abusing his power in unprecedented ways. He is basically ruling through executive orders, bypassing the democratic process and acting like a King. Well, let’s take a brief look at the history of Executive Orders in America.

The amount of executive orders by Presidents has, overall, increased over the years. This has been an assumption of a lot of people.  Is that correct?  Let’s look at the facts.

In the first 72 years of the American Republic, not one President, not even Abraham Lincoln, who fought a war to force the South to stay in the Union, issued more than 79 executive orders, and that came from the last President in that era, Andrew Johnson. Ulysses S. Grant broke Johnson’s then-record of 79 by writing a whopping 217 executive orders.

That record would stand for 72 years until the first Progressive President took to the helm, Theodore Roosevelt, who would crush Grant’s record by writing an astounding 1,081 executive orders. His opponent in 1912, Woodrow Wilson, would end up breaking Roosevelt’s record by writing 1803 executive orders.

You remember 1912, don’t you? That was the year the “God so Progressivism” versus “Science so Progressivism” candidates faced off.  The “Science so Progressivism” candidate won. More on that a little later.

Calvin Coolidge, the so-called last true limited government President, failed to break Wilson’s record, but he did manage to rack up 1,203 executive orders.

After Teddy, numbers in the 500 range became the norm until John Kennedy, who came in with only 214 executive orders, a figure that would have put him in first place in the first 70 years of the Republic. Of course, Kennedy didn’t even get to serve a full term.

But the monster of all monsters when it came to executive orders came from a man who served 4 terms in office, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the man who former Barack Obama cited as his biggest Presidential influence. FDR wrote a total of 3,728 total executive orders, meaning he averaged 1,864 executive orders per 8-year time period, putting him ahead of Wilsons 1803 executive orders that were the previous record for an 8-year term.

After Kennedy, however, instead of seeing numbers like 500, 800, 1,000, you were seeing numbers like 100, 200, 300.  Barack Obama, for instance, only managed to write 297 executive orders. Donald Trump is on pace, however, to pass 500 executive orders if he servers 2 terms.

By the way, while I’m no Barry O apologist, it is worth noting that Ronald Reagan wrote 381 executive orders to Barack Obama’s 276 executive orders.  One of those executive orders happened in 1987, when, through decree, Reagan created immigration regulations based off 1986 legislation granting amnesty to “illegal immigrants.” His regulation allowed minor children of parents to be protected from being deported. In other words, Reagan passed his own DREAM act, through an executive order.

The very nature of the executive order calls into question the whole notion that you have a republic in the first place.  And one could argue that the executive orders of Obama and Trump have far more power behind them than, say, 300 executive orders from even a guy like Woodrow Wilson.

However, that argument doesn’t really stand up to reality, as there have been executive orders that have been at least as far reaching and have demonstrated the near-Imperial power of the Presidency long before Obama and Trump.

For instance, though we celebrate this executive order (as we should), the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln fundamentally changed the reality in America, ending the institution of slavery without a line of legislation being written. It was a decree from the de facto “democratic” King, Abraham Lincoln.

In this instance, the abuse of power by a President, who seems to have gone far outside of the ostensible bounds of the Constitution, worked in favor of liberty. But, it illustrates that the history of Presidents using executive orders to profoundly alter human action is nothing new.

One of the many great sins of America was the rounding up of Japanese Americans and forcing them into de facto concentration camps during World War Two. This action was triggered by an executive order written by the King of Executive Orders, and really the most effective progressive President of all-time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an agency that has tremendous power in the Federal Government, an agency that has a budget of around $40 billion a year, was created by an executive order written by Jimmy Carter in 1979.

The list of earth-shattering executive orders by King XO, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is long and stunning. It includes many elements of the New Deal, Gold Confiscation, and nationalizing the steel industry.

So, in the history of America, the President’s ability to use decree alone to exact significant policy change has long been an accepted but little-talked about precedent.

Contrary to what you might think (and yeah, I set you up a bit, on purpose) executive orders have NOT increased significantly, nor have the weight of those orders increased. You are simply coming to terms with a little-talked-about reality that throws a dead fly in the middle of your pristine jar of honey called “we are a republic and a nation of laws.”

What Trump is doing today, and yesterday, is not at all unprecedented. What former President Obama did through executive orders was also not unprecedented. This is what the office of Presidency is, and has been for a long time, a de facto ‘constitutional’ Kingship with limited terms for the King.

But even if the executive orders are not unprecedented, will they really fix the healthcare problem in America?

The Root of the Healthcare Problem

The fundamental problem with healthcare in America lies in the attempt by highly centralized planners and designers, many of whom have direct private industry connections (and thus conflicts of interest), to create a market that achieves a desired outcome. Just what that outcome is, well, is somewhat of a mystery.

Healthcare is one the key areas in life that enables a small group of people to control the lives of vast numbers of people. The old saying goes, he who has the gold, has the power. If you control healthcare, then the saying becomes, he who grants the coverage, holds the power. In this case, you hold the power of life and death over people.

Not only do you control the people by deciding who gets effective care and who does not, you also create a market that guarantees high profits.  You do this by freezing out any form of healthcare that would take away from your profits (like refusing to recognize and license homeopathic doctors), creating regulations that make it cost prohibitive for small companies to compete with mega corporations, and subsidize a huge portion of the market, which has the effect of creating artificial demand, which drives up price, AND creates a source of guaranteed revenue for the businesses that are in on the scheme.

What Trumps’ executive orders will do is simply damage an already broken system, a system designed to be broken.  In some ways, because they don’t fundamentally fix the root of the healthcare problem, government interference in one of the most critical marketplaces to human action, they may do more harm than good.

Obamacare itself is the product of that “Science so Progressivism” candidate from the 1912 election, Woodrow Wilson, who worked to turn into reality his idea of the Hive. The Hive works like this, you create a super democratic process. You democratize everything. Through democratization you can more easily manipulate the masses using appeals to strong emotions like fear and anger (especially fear and anger).

You whip the voters up into the frenzy of your choice to win their support to write laws like the Patriot Act (which is really the “The State Can Spy on You and Detain You for Any Reason it Deems Fit” Act) and the Affordable Care Act (which is really the “We mean to Wreck what’s left of the Healthcare Marketplace to Get You to BEG US For Single Payer Down the Road” Act). You write the skeleton of a far-reaching bill using vague terms.

You then allow an army of nameless, faceless, unaccountable technocrats, the regulators, often from the same sector that’s being regulated, to essentially write and rewrite, amend and alter legislation, law, but you call it regulation.

The idea was that the regulation nation could more fluidly respond to the evolving needs of the good of the whole and dispense with that whole mess of public opinion. Trump’s executive orders don’t fundamentally change that reality. They might make things worse, as I said earlier, which would, in the end, work in the favor of the Single Payer party. Why? Well, what narrative do you think will emerge if Trump’s executive orders cause more harm than good?

The response, of course, will be that this proves that relaxing government control on the healthcare marketplace causes more problems than it fixes. It’s kind of like this. You have two problems in your single engine plane that is magically being kept afloat even though it really is not fit for flying. The reason it is not fit for flying is the government has created regulations that cause you to point the ailerons always down, as well as regulations that don’t allow you to attach a propeller to your plane.

The plane is being held up in the air by a giant jumbo liner that’s about four times as expensive to fly as the single engine plane you have. That would be all the subsidies in the system.

Along comes Donny with his executive orders that take away the jumbo plane and allow you to add the prop. What happens? Well, the plane shoots right towards the ground. Everyone aboard the plane is screaming for their very lives. Then along comes the next President, or maybe a veto-proof congress, and they say, hey, see what we told you? You need government.

This is why it is evil to take government out of healthcare. The plane will crash. Tell you what – let’s make a bigger jumbo liner to carry this plane and for the love of humanity, get that freaking propeller off the plane.

The people in the plane rejoice that they have been saved by the government, not realizing that the fuel exhaust from the jumbo liner above them is seeping into the single engine plane’s cabin and everyone on that plane is slowly being poisoned to death.

Conclusion

So Donny did a thing, a thing hardly unprecedented. He used the King-like powers of the American Presidency, the King’s decree, the Executive order, to fundamentally alter a critical marketplace for human action, healthcare. He took away the jumbo liner. He allowed you to add a propeller, but he did nothing to fix the ailerons, so, give it a few years, or even less, and some government savior will come along. Most of you will cheer even more government intervention into healthcare than you already got, even though that intrusion is what wrecked this marketplace in the very beginning.

Trump’s Executive Orders on Obamacare may effectively end the signature legislation of former President Barack Obama, but he will hardly end gov-care, and that, my friends, is a far pressing problem.