by Newt Gingrich and Joe DeSantis, OPINION |
Sep 30, 2020
THE HILL – Joe Biden’s assertion during Tuesday’s debate that President Trump does not have a health care plan is flat out false.
Unfortunately, the mainstream news media’s fact checkers probably won’t call him out on it, and not just because of their normal anti-Trump bias.
In fact, there is a widespread misunderstanding of what the president has done in health care and how it all fits together.
Back in 2018, we described President Trump’s “1,000 step progress on health reform,” noting that instead of opting to pass one giant, comprehensive health care bill, the president was delivering a series of small but significant reforms to cumulatively take us to a much better destination.
That destination was outlined in 2017 by the administration in a 124-page Health and Human Services document, “Reforming America’s Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition.” The document is a distillation of the dysfunction of our health care system, much of which ObamaCare made worse. It also paints a picture of an alternative model — one that puts patients before insurance companies or government bureaucrats and delivers better care and coverage at lower costs.
Everything that President Trump has done in health care since then has been consistent with the vision laid out in the document. The challenge for the news media, and even some of the president’s supporters, has been an issue of attention span — a tendency to miss the forest for the trees.
Even when there is coverage of one of the president’s actions on health care, it is viewed in isolation rather than as another step towards the destination described in 2017.
There was a moment during his health care speech in Charlotte, N.C., last Thursday, however, when President Trump brought everything into focus to form a complete picture. He broke from his prepared remarks to read a partial list of what his administration has done on health care in three-and-a-half years.
We are including the list here to show how methodical and consistent his actions have been in implementing his vision of reforming America’s health care system with choice and competition:
- Repealed the individual mandate;
- Eliminated ObamaCare’s health insurance, medical device and “Cadillac plan” taxes;
- Expanded association health plans …
Thanks to his 1,000-step approach on health reform, we are on our way to a transparent, patient-focused health care system that delivers better care and coverage at lower costs. Read more.
Newt Gingrich is host of the Newt’s World podcast. A Republican, he was speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Follow him on Twitter @NewtGingrich. His latest book is “Collusion.”
Joe DeSantis is chief strategy officer at Gingrich 360 and leads the organization’s health care strategic initiatives and consulting. Gingrich 360 advises various companies and organizations in the health care industry.
