Trump cuts to ObamaCare outreach to hit red states most

[DonViejo]

BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL - 09/15/17 06:00 AM EDT

The Trump administration’s decision to slash outreach funding for ObamaCare will, perhaps unintentionally, hit red states the hardest.

The move last month to cut 90 percent of funds to spur signups for healthcare.gov is likely to lead to fewer young and healthy people in the insurance pool — and thus higher costs in states with majority Trump voters, according to experts.

But Trump has been threatening to let ObamaCare implode for months, and has not shouldered much blame for the consequences of that uncertainty, including high premiums and lack of insurers in some markets.

“Trump is not going to get blamed for this,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said. “The problems with ObamaCare need to be fixed, and it needs to be done by Congress.”

Late last month, in the latest sign of the Trump’s distaste of the law, Department of Health and Human Services officials said funding for advertising and other outreach for ObamaCare enrollment would be cut from $100 million last year to $10 million this year.

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http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/health-reform-implementation/350692-trump-cuts-to-obamacare-outreach-to-hit-red

[lunasun]

1. Then they will hate obamacare even more. Red states are republican pawns but don't care

[gratuitous]

2. No political downside for this "strategy"

We've already seen for the past seven years that conservatives will happily, thankfully, and defiantly live sicker and die younger if it means one more headline against "Obamacare" shows up in their local paper or on a Fox chyron. From the get-go when all those Republican-dominated states first successfully challenged the Medicaid expansion and then refused to participate in the expansion, poor and middle class people in Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi and other Red states have gleefully gotten sicker rather than accept any gummint hand-outs that might also go to some unspecified "those" people (but we all know who "those" people are).

If Trump's policies make them and their fellow citizens even sicker, that's a price they will gladly pay to stick it to those liberals and their nefarious plan to deliver affordable health care to everyone.