PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES’ HEALTH PROPOSALS

As Election Day 2016 approaches, it is time to take a look at the candidate’s health care proposals.  Although this issue has not played an especially prominent role recently in either Hillary Clinton’s or Donald Trump’s campaigns–although it was briefly discussed the October 9 debate–it is certainly an issue of importance to many Americans, and will continue to be so well after the election is over.

The Commonwealth Fund recently released a report comparing the two candidate’s health care proposals and not surprisingly, there are stark differences between their two approaches.  In short, Clinton wants to keep the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but make needed changes; her proposals would increase the number of people with health insurance by 400,000 to 9.6 million.  Trump would repeal and replace the ACA with a proposal entitled “Healthcare Reform to Make America Great Again;” it would decrease the number of people with health insurance by 15.6 million to 25.1 million.  Both Clinton’s and Trump’s proposals have an impact on the deficit of course; the Commonwealth Fund has estimated that the impact of Clinton’s proposals could range from a $0.7 billion reduction in the deficit to a $90 billion increase.  They estimate that the Trump proposals would increase the deficit by $0.5 billion to $41 billion.

Read more here.