Trump’s First 100 Days: What we’ve learned about the GOP health-care bill

Here’s where things stand heading into Day 54 of the Trump administration: The fate of Republicans’ health-care proposal is still up in the air.

But as of Monday, we know a lot more about what the plan would actually do.

The American Health Care Act – the GOP bill to revise the Affordable Care Act – would nearly double the share of Americans who are uninsured from 10 percent to 19 percent over the coming decade, according to a nonpartisan budget analysis released Monday. That comes out to 24 million more people who will go without health-care coverage over 10 years if the bill is enacted, including 14 million fewer insured next year alone.

These numbers came from the Capitol Hill’s official scorekeeper – the Congressional Budget Office – in a highly anticipated report. And they matter, primarily because lawmakers are already using them to decide whether or not to support the Republicans’ bill.

Here’s what else we learned from the analysis:

The bill would not just result in millions more people becoming uninsured. It would, in the long term, also slightly lower the cost of health insurance premiums. The CBO estimated premiums would rise 15 to 20 percent in the first year after the GOP bill is enacted, then fall by 10 percent on average after a decade.

The report also included some good news for deficit hawks. The AHCA would lower the federal budget deficit by $337 billion over 10 years by reducing Medicaid spending and government aid to help people to buy health plans, the CBO found.

These details matter greatly to moderate and conservative Republicans who are still deciding whether to support the legislation. To moderates, the projected spike in uninsured people is troubling. To conservatives, there are some things to like, including the deficit reduction.

President Donald Trump had pledged that no Americans would lose coverage under a new health-care plan, and top White House aides rejected the CBO’s estimate. Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, called it “just absurd,” while Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the numbers “defy logic.”

Soon, we’ll understand how this all shakes out. On Wednesday, the legislation heads to the House Budget Committee, one of just a few final steps before it goes to the House floor for its vote.

TRUMP WANTS EASIER WAY TO LAUNCH DRONE STRIKES

Trump has said it many times – he wants to defeat the Islamic State. It’s his top foreign policy priority. So, how does he plan to do it?

We got a clue Monday night thanks to one of our colleagues, who reported that Trump is seeking to roll back Obama-era rules on drone strikes to make it easier for the Pentagon to launch them anywhere in the world.

This news doesn’t just give us a look at Trump’s strategy, though. It signals what could become a major policy shift in where drone strikes take place and how decisions to launch them are made.

As our colleague wrote, the new Trump policy might relax or drop the current standard on civilian casualties, which “demands near-certainty that no civilians are killed or injured in U.S. raids or drone strikes outside conflict zones.”

Drafts of the policy would also shift final approval for individual strikes from the White House to the Pentagon and the CIA, and appear likely to scrap a standard that “potential terror targets outside war zones pose a continuing and imminent threat to Americans.”

TRUMP BUDGET WOULD MASSIVELY CUT FEDERAL WORKFORCE

One of Trump’s campaign slogans was his promise to “drain the swamp” – referring to Washington, D.C.

By swamp, he apparently didn’t just mean lobbyists.

Trump’s budget proposal would order a “historic contraction of the federal workforce” echoing the draw-down that took place after World War II, our colleague reported ahead of the release of Trump’s budget Thursday.

These changes would “dramatically change how the federal government functions and its role in American society” if they are enacted, according to former White House officials. One former director of the CBO predicted the cuts would require a “wholesale triage of a vast array of federal activities.”

For Trump and his aides, it’s about overhauling the federal government to focus primarily on the military and national security while letting go of priorities in areas like housing, foreign assistance and the environment.

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