FOX NEWS (FOXBusiness.com) — The Trump administration is “on a secret road map” to kill the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and replace it with a new health-care system, Fox News host and Trump campaign surrogate Stuart Varney told Fox Business Network.
Trump administration officials are “looking at a new system that they want to go in,” Varney said, adding that it would cost tens of billions of dollars.
“We have a secret roadmap,” he said.
“They want to destroy the ACA and replace this with something totally different.
And so I have to tell you, this is a game-changer for America.”
The Trump White House and Congress are working on a plan to repeal the ACA, which took effect in 2010, under which Americans could obtain health insurance by purchasing an individual policy.
The White House has repeatedly touted that it is a “historic” achievement, but critics say it has left millions of Americans uninsured.
The Trump-led administration has been working for months to repeal and replace the ACA.
Under the administration’s plan, insurance plans sold on the ACA exchanges would have to provide coverage to people who have incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), which is $15,680 for an individual and $26,600 for a family of four.
Under this new plan, the FPL would be $27,550 for an American, $35,150 for a Canadian and $54,100 for a person from Mexico.
A recent White House analysis estimated that between 2020 and 2026, as many as 15 million people could be dropped from the ACA insurance market, with some people losing access to health insurance because of their incomes.
Varney suggested that the Trump administration may have a new plan for how to replace the Affordable Health Care Act.
“So you have the idea of putting in place a plan for this to happen, and then the real question is, is there something you can do to replace it?” he said, noting that the government is “looking into the idea” of replacing the ACA with a plan that would “keep a lot of the same insurance market reforms” that the ACA had.
The plan would also replace Medicaid, the federal health-insurance program for low-income Americans, with a “state-run” system.
The “state system,” Varneys suggested, would “save the state a lot, and that’s what you want to do with the Medicaid.”
However, there are “serious problems” with the plan, Varney pointed out.
“It’s going to cost $1 trillion, and you don’t want to spend that on a program you can’t even afford to cover.”
He said that the plan could result in “death panels” and the creation of “an entirely new health care system.”
The president’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, told the Wall Street Journal that “we’re moving forward” on a replacement plan.
Trump has long said that health care was a top priority for the president and that he would pursue it through a “reform and replacement” process.
The Affordable Care Care Act has been under attack by Republicans in Congress, who have been pressing for a replacement system that would provide health care to all Americans, regardless of their income.
Republicans have repeatedly opposed efforts to repeal or replace the law, including by the Trump campaign.
However, the president’s team has acknowledged that it will take years to get a replacement bill through Congress.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Priebus said that a replacement would take years.
“I think a long process will be necessary,” he told host Chris Wallace.
“There are a lot more people on this issue that we have to work with and talk to and work with to get it done.”