Inspector General Probes Trump Administration’s Move To Pull Obamacare Enrollment Ads

[moonshaz]

The Department of Health and Human Services inspector general has launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s decision to pull ads encouraging people to sign up for the Affordable Care Act during the enrollment period. By shutting down such outreach, the action could be seen as a stealth way to starve the health plan without

Comments

[hudebnik]

What can this "investigation" accomplish? I don't think it's illegal for the Executive branch to suddenly decide not to spend money on ads (not that legality is ever a big concern for this administration).

Likewise, it's hard to point to a law that would be broken if the IRS failed to enforce the tax penalty for uninsured people, or if healthcare.gov were given no maintenance budget so the Web site breaks down, or various other forms of passive-aggressive sabotage.

Trump and Ryan have both made clear, in public statements, that this is their new strategy: use every trick they can think of to sabotage Obamacare until Democrats come begging on bended knee for their help in dismantling it and enacting a replacement of the Republicans' choosing.

They've both recognized by now what should have been obvious months ago: that Republicans don't have a single, coherent replacement plan, so any replacement will require Democratic votes. They see yesterday's failure as the tactical error of not twisting enough Democratic arms in advance to support their plan, and this is how they're going to avoid that error next time.

Of course, there's another way they could get Democratic votes: actually ask Democrats for suggestions on ways to improve Obamacare -- and there are plenty of ways it could be improved. That's what Obama did in 2009: ask Republicans for ideas on how to make health care work better, including the Heritage Foundation plan that became Obamacare, and bargain away a lot of things he wanted (such as the public option) in an effort to get bipartisanship. Some R's even supported preliminary versions of the bill, before finally falling in line with McConnell's "oppose everything this President supports" rule.

If anybody thinks R's are likely to ask D's for serious input this time.... BWAHAHAHAHA!