, Columnist
A Better Goal for Trump on Health Care
Forget about repealing Obamacare. Work instead on lowering medical costs and improving treatment.
Where they're headed makes a difference.
Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Rather than renew their failed effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans should move on to another aspect of health care: the need to contain costs and improve value.
Such a shift would allow them to be far more productive. For many if not most Americans, cost trends and value matter more than what’s happening on the individual insurance exchanges. Progress on this front would raise people’s take-home pay and improve the nation’s long-term fiscal balance, while also constraining the growth in premiums for those who buy insurance on the exchanges.