Trump Reveals Health Care Plan Outline 01/16 06:09

   President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the outlines of a health care 
plan he wants Congress to take up as Republicans have faced increasing pressure 
to address rising health costs after lawmakers let subsidies expire.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the outlines 
of a health care plan he wants Congress to take up as Republicans have faced 
increasing pressure to address rising health costs after lawmakers let 
subsidies expire.

   The cornerstone is his proposal to send money directly to Americans for 
health savings accounts so they can handle insurance and health costs as they 
see fit. Democrats have rejected the idea as a paltry substitute for the tax 
credits that had helped lower monthly premiums for many people.

   "The government is going to pay the money directly to you," Trump said in a 
taped video the White House released to announce the plan. "It goes to you and 
then you take the money and buy your own health care."

   Trump's plan also focuses on lowering drug prices and requiring insurers to 
be more upfront with the public about costs, revenues, rejected claims and wait 
times for care.

   Trump has long been dogged by his lack of a comprehensive health care plan 
as he and Republicans have sought to unwind former President Barack Obama's 
signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act. Trump was thwarted during his 
first term in trying to repeal and replace the law.

   When he ran for president in 2024, Trump said he had only "concepts of a 
plan" to address health care. His new proposal, short on many specifics, 
appeared to be the concepts of a plan.

   Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid 
Services, described it to reporters on a telephone briefing as a "framework 
that we believe will help Congress create legislation."

   A White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and 
described some details on condition of anonymity said the administration had 
been discussing the proposal with allies in Congress, but was unable to name 
any lawmakers who were working to address the plan.

   Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the Republican chair of the Senate health 
committee, said in a social media post praising Trump's plan that his committee 
"has and will take action on the President's affordability agenda."

   Few specifics on health savings accounts

   The White House did not offer any details about how much money it envisioned 
being sent to consumers to shop for insurance, or whether the money would be 
available to all "Obamacare" enrollees or just those with lower-tier bronze and 
catastrophic plans.

   The idea mirrors one floated among Republican senators last year. Democrats 
largely rejected it, saying the accounts would not be enough to cover costs for 
most consumers. Currently, such accounts are used disproportionately by the 
wealthiest Americans, who have more income to fund them and a bigger incentive 
to lower their tax rate.

   White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked Thursday whether the 
president could guarantee that under his plan, people would be able to cover 
their health costs. She did not directly answer, but said, "If this plan is put 
in place, every single American who has health care in the United States will 
see lower costs as a result."

   Enhanced tax credits that helped reduce the cost of insurance for the vast 
majority of Affordable Care Act enrollees expired at the end of 2025 even 
though Democrats had forced a 43-day government shutdown over the issue.

   Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, has been leading a bipartisan group of 12 
senators trying to devise a compromise that would extend those subsidies for 
two years while adding new limits on who can receive them. That proposal would 
create the option, in the second year, of a health savings account that Trump 
and Republicans prefer.

   The White House official denied that Trump was closing the door completely 
on those bipartisan negotiations, and said the White House preferred to send 
money directly to consumers.

   Plan follows massive cuts to health programs

   Trump's plan comes months after the Republicans' big tax and spending bill 
last year cut more than $1 trillion over a decade in federal health care and 
food assistance, largely by imposing work requirements on those receiving aid 
and shifting certain federal costs to the states.

   Democrats have blasted those cuts as devastating for vulnerable people who 
rely on programs such as Medicaid for their health care. The GOP bill included 
an infusion of $50 billion over five years for rural health programs, an amount 
experts have said is inadequate to fill the gap in funding.

   The White House said Trump's new proposal will seek to bring down premiums 
by fully funding cost-sharing reductions, or CSRs, a type of financial help 
that insurers give to low-income ACA enrollees on silver-level, or mid-tier 
plans.

   From 2014 until 2017, the federal government reimbursed insurance companies 
for CSRs. In 2017, the first Trump administration stopped making those 
payments. To make up for the lost money, insurance companies raised premiums 
for silver-level plans. That ended up increasing the financial assistance many 
enrollees got to help them pay for premiums.

   As a result, health analysts say that while restoring money for CSRs would 
likely bring down silver-level premiums, as Trump says, it could have the 
unwelcome ripple effect of increasing many people's net premiums on bronze and 
gold plans.

   Lowering drug prices is a priority

   Oz said Trump's plans also seeks to have certain medications made available 
over the counter instead of by prescription if they are deemed safe enough. He 
mentioned higher-dose nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and peptic ulcer 
drugs as two examples.

   It was unclear whether the White House is asking Congress to take steps to 
make more prescription drugs available over the counter. For decades, the Food 
and Drug Administration has had the ability to do that.

   The heartburn drug Prilosec, as well as numerous allergy medications, are 
among those the FDA has approved for over-the-counter sales. The FDA only 
approves such changes if studies show patients can safely take the drug after 
reading the package labeling. Companies must apply for the switch.

   The White House said Trump's plan would also codify his efforts to lower 
drug prices by tying prices to the lowest price paid by other countries.

   Trump has already struck deals with a number of drugmakers to get them to 
lower the prices. As part of that, the drugmakers have agreed to sell 
pharmacy-ready medicines directly to consumers who can shop online at the White 
House's website for selling drugs directly to consumers, TrumpRx.gov.

   TrumpRx did not yet have any drugs listed on Thursday. Oz said drugs will be 
available on the website at the end of the month.