The Trump administration is facing searing criticism over a trio of significant decisions this week, all of which are eminently defensible, if not entirely correct.
(1) On Obamacare's cost sharing subsidies, an issue we touched on a number of weeks ago, the president
has decided to cease making payments of dollars that were never appropriated by
Congress -- a task for which they are solely responsible under the
constitution.
When the legislative
branch failed to approve bailout-style "cost sharing" dollars to be
paid to insurers to mitigate their financial losses associated with covering
consumers with costly pre-existing conditions (which weren't sufficiently offset by an influx of young, healthy
people willing to overpay for coverage), President Obama started paying out those
funds unilaterally.
The House of
Representatives, then led by Speaker John Boehner, sued in federal court -- and won.
Obama's payouts were
illegal, the court ruled, agreeing with House Republicans' legal argument.
With the Trump
administration announcement that they are ceasing those payments, all three
branches of the federal government have now affirmed that the previous White
House's actions were unlawful.
This is really all you
need to know.
It is undeniable that
this move will severely disrupt the individual healthcare market in America,
and that providers will move en masse toward even larger premium increases to
compensate for the additional red ink they're now highly likely to incur.
This is a profoundly
negative policy outcome that will exacerbate already-serious financial stresses and dysfunction caused
by Obamacare's failing structure.
These fundamental flaws
and spiraling dynamics predate Donald Trump, and cannot be accurately pinned on Republican
"saboteurs."
If left unaddressed, the
cessation of CSR's will make things worse.
Meanwhile, Republicans
have failed to 'repeal and replace' the law in its entirety, as they promised
to do for seven years.
The president's
executive order on healthcare regulations unveiled this week (about which I
have some constitutional doubts) may tinker around the edges to help some people currently priced out of Obamacare, but
it's hardly a sweeping solution.
With the
unconstitutionally-allocated CSR's getting the axe, the GOP-held Congress now
faces a dilemma: Properly appropriate those funds, which were authorized in
Obamacare (which Obamacare opponents will decry as propping up a harmful law
that's hurting people), or let costs spike much higher than they already have
(which Obamacare proponents will cast as undermining the law and hurting
people).
Thanks to their repeal
face-plants, Congressional Republicans' least bad remaining option appears to
be shepherding through a "fix" for the broken law that restores these
stabilizing pay-offs to insurers in exchange for some modest reforms.
Lamar Alexander and
Patty Murray have been working on the contours of such a bill for some time now.
Just as with DACA, Congress must act to prevent unjust and
harmful outcomes from taking effect after illegal Obama power-grabs disappear.
But also just as with
DACA, this is the job of Congress, not the executive branch.
Obama's policy was against
the law. We are a nation of laws.
Thus, the Trump
administration is absolutely right to respect the rule of law.
Republicans and
Democrats are now -- rightly -- in charge of cleaning up the mess that
Democrats made with their shoddy law, which they built and sold on lies. They should do their job.
(2) Speaking of lies, next up is the Iran deal.
The Trump administration
has elected not to pull out of Obama's unilateral Iran nuclear deal, which was
opposed by substantial bipartisan majorities in Congress.
Rather than exiting the
agreement entirely, the White House declined to certify that it's in the United
States' interests and rolled out a new
policy posture toward Iran on a number of fronts.
The US government will
also pursue a tougher line against the world's top state sponsor of
international terrorism, including significant strengthening of Western-imposed
restrictions on Iran's once-rogue nuclear program (which Obama legitimized).
One of the most
egregious flaws of the Iran deal was that its limits against Iranian
nuclearization automatically sunset over a time horizon of 10-15 years, meaning
that even if Tehran doesn't cheat (various intel reports suggest that they have been cheating, as they always do), they could just wait out the clock until key
restrictions expire.
Even Obama has effectively conceded that Iran could become a threshold
nuclear-armed state once those provisions go away.
Team Trump and
Congressional Republicans are now weighing plans that would nix those
indefensible and reckless expiration dates.
If the United States is going to remain a party to this
lopsided accord, it must become less lopsided.
If the Iranians are telling the truth (heh) that their
nuclear program is purely peaceful and not intended to develop weapons (heh
heh), they should have no objection to the extension of restrictions to which
they've already agreed.
The new policy is less accommodating of the anti-American
regime, it seeks to expand the duration of crucial restrictions, it emphasizes
vigilant enforcement, and takes additional concrete steps against some of
Iran's worst actors.
It strikes an acceptable balance between the forces
within the administration who wanted the president to decertify Obama's bad
deal altogether, and those -- including Gen. Mattis -- who wanted to keep the
framework intact.
Lawmakers should not accept the Obama-crafted status quo
as US policy.
It was never stable US policy, which Obama guaranteed by
bypassing Congress, knowing he lacked support on Capitol Hill.
(3) Some internationalists aren't pleased with the Trump
administration's withdrawal from participation in UNESCO, the United Nations'
"Environmental, Scientific and Cultural Organization."
The US pulled out, along with Israel, citing the group's
cartoonish and unending affronts against the Jewish State:
State
Department officials said they hope the withdrawal will help push UNESCO to make changes that would
satisfy Washington so the U.S. can resume full membership...“It sends a strong
message that we need to see fundamental reform in the organization, and it
raises everyone’s awareness about continued anti-Israel bias,” said one
official, speaking on condition of anonymity under department ground
rules...Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said the last straw was
when UNESCO this summer designated the old city of Hebron in the West Bank,
with its Tomb of the Patriarchs, a Palestinian World Heritage site...Calling
UNESCO’s politicization a “chronic embarrassment,” Haley added, “Just as we
said in 1984 when President Reagan withdrew from UNESCO, U.S. taxpayers should
no longer be on the hook to pay for policies that are hostile to our values and
make a mockery of justice and common sense.”
Cuba's delegation objecting to a moment of silence
for Holocaust victims, to rousing applause. Disgusting.
The US' departure from
this disgraceful clown show was long overdue.
May the $600 million we
"owe" UNESCO never be repaid, until and unless the organization's
anti-Israel histrionics are put to an end.
This statement is a
refreshing change from the groveling Obama era of "Smart Power."
