Trump's 100-day milestone has come and gone, and the fifteenth week of his presidency has come to a close. There have been a number of developments this past week: Congress avoided a government shutdown, Trump invited the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte (who has been accused of mass murder over extrajudicial killings in his country's drug wars) to the White House, proposed a tax plan that overwhelmingly benefits the rich, and once again engaged in trading insults with Hillary Clinton. Trump has continued to frame the media as an enemy to his administration: at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvanie to celebrate his first 100 days, Trump declared of the media that, "Their priorities are not my priorities, and not your priorities. If the media's job is to be honest and tell the truth, the media deserves a very, very big fat failing grade." He has gone so far as to leave interviews in which he is posed questions that he does not care for.
However, the most notable development of week fifteen of the Trump presidency is the passing of an amended version of the American Health Care Act, or AHCA by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Two principle changes have been made to the AHCA since it failed to pass the House. The first amendment allows states to apply for waivers that will allow them to charge older healthcare customers more than young ones. This change is tailored to the House Freedom Caucus, which refused to support the first version of bill because it failed to contain any such clause. The amendment, which is known as the MacArthur-Meadows amendment, also allows states to individually determine what constitutes "basic benefits" in a healthcare plan-if ill customers allow their coverage to lapse for more than two months, they would be subject to much higher costs. This has prompted widespread outrage as it poses a threat to the constancy and affordability of healthcare coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. The Upton proposal has been made to add $8 billion to a fund meant to assist states with covering chronically ill patients, but such funding is far from sufficient for a nation comprised of over 300 million citizens. Senator Chuck Schumer decried the proposal, stating, "The proposed Upton amendment is like administering cough medicine to someone with stage-four cancer. This Republican amendment leaves Americans with pre-existing conditions as vulnerable as they were before under this bill."
The amended American Health Care Act would still likely result in 24 million individuals being uninsured by the year 2026. Those most likely to suffer as a result of the bill would be those who have low incomes, are older in age, and live in high-cost areas. Under the Republican plan, Planned Parenthood would be defunded and Medicaid would no longer be required to cover maternity care or contraceptives after 2020. As a result, the most vulnerable group under the amended AHCA would be low-income women. It is yet to be seen whether the bill be able to pass the Senate.
- https://news.vice.com/story/week-15-in-trumps-america-pondering-the-civil-war
- https://www.bustle.com/p/whats-different-in-the-revised-healthcare-bill-the-amended-ahca-is-even-worse-than-the-first-version-55630
- http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/warren-buffett-trumps-tax-plan-will-help-my-wealthy-shareholders/article/2622346
