November 1, 2017

Here Are All The Ways Trump Is Already Sabotaging Obamacare and Raising Premiums

Enrollment is open. Don’t expect Trump to help.

Open enrollment for 2018 kicked off Wednesday morning. It’s the only time of year (save a few exceptions) that individuals and families can buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, and it lasts six weeks. Back when Barack Obama was president, the government made a big annual push in the lead-up to open enrollment: The president took his sales pitch to late-night TV and even starred in absurdist viral videos to make sure people knew it was time to sign up for the next year’s insurance plan.

But the Trump administration is taking a different approach. On Tuesday, Trump released a campaign-style video attacking the law. “Obamacare is failing,” the narrator intones. “Insurance premiums skyrocketing. Working families suffer. All while Democrats in Washington, DC, block a better plan to repeal and replace Obamacare once and for all.” The president has, of course, tweeted about it.

It’s not surprising to see Trump spending the days before open enrollment trying to sow confusion. The president has spent much of 2017 trying to dismantle the law, partially by urging Congress to pass a repeal, but also by taking advantage of executive fiat to make subtle changes that could depress enrollment. Thanks to Trump’s decision to cut off cost-sharing reduction payments, which refund insurance companies for offering lower deductibles and copays to low-income families, premiums shot up anywhere from 7 to 38 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

We put together the most significant changes the Trump administration has made to undermine Obama’s health care law. Watch the video above.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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