Trump burns ObamaCare with a magnifying glass

America's bored president does health care

President Trump.
(Image credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

There is absolutely no imaginable justification for President Trump's abrupt, cruel, capricious decision to eliminate $7 billion in subsidy payments to health insurance companies offering coverage on the individual market.

Critics have, naturally, exaggerated the implications of the executive order. It is not a "bomb" tossed at the Affordable Care Act or even a precisely aimed bullet. It is more like a random stabbing that will probably go mostly unnoticed on a crowded street. It will not affect the largest group of people who have benefited from President Obama's signature health-care law, namely, those who have received coverage thanks to the expansion of Medicaid. In fact, young, more or less healthy people purchasing coverage on the exchanges will stand to benefit substantially.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.