When President Trump claimed last week that “I know the details of health care better than most, better than most,” it now appears he had a point in at least one area.
His meandering comments about health care and “associations” were confusing, and not totally accurate. But, in his remarks to Michael Schmidt of The New York Times, Mr. Trump previewed several tenets of a major regulation that was proposed by his Department of Labor on Thursday. And he articulated how the rule could interact with other health policy changes — and the consequences that could follow.
Since his days as a candidate, Mr. Trump has consistently said that he wants to expand insurance access across state lines. And he has repeatedly argued that the decline and failure of Obamacare’s insurance markets would spur Democrats to come to the table and negotiate on some new plan. Thursday’s rule, amid other recent changes, aligns with both of those goals.
The proposed rule is designed to make it easier for groups of individuals and small businesses to band together and buy the kind of insurance that large companies offer their workers. That kind of insurance is regulated under federal labor law and isn’t subject to all the requirements and consumer protections that apply to individual and small business insurance under Obamacare.
