If confirmed this week, Tom Price, Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, may lead the charge in dismantling Obamacare.
The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, was implemented in 2010 and if overturned could leave over 18 million uninsured in 2018.
In an interview with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, President Trump confirmed that while his agenda, and that of the Republicans, includes dismantling Obamacare as a whole, there is no plan in place that would seamlessly replace it.
“Maybe it’ll take till sometime into next year, but we’re certainly going to be in the process,” explained Trump.
Repealing the act without an alternative to put into place would have day-to-day ramifications for women across the country. For those who have insurance under ACA, they would lose many of the preventative care options that Obamacare’s mandate currently covers.
For instance, the law requires that birth control be provided as a preventative health care option. Should this aspect of the healthcare process be repealed, women, without any other health insurance options, would have to front the monthly cost of birth control. The cost could range anywhere from $30-$50 for birth control pills to into the hundreds for other more long-term forms of birth control.
Tom Price, a Republican congressman, has found extreme issue with the mandate since its inception, on the basis of religion.
“The entire law is predicated upon the assumption that a person’s individual choice — and in this case one’s religious freedoms — are to take a back seat to the wishes and the will of Washington bureaucrats,” Price said in 2012, according to Politico.
The parameters on which Obamacare was created gives the head of the Health and Human Services leeway to enact, or remove, aspects of the Act according to his or her discretion.
The Senate is set to vote on Price’s nomination this week.
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