Readers pan all aspects of Trump's first 100 days dealing with healthcare
We asked our audience of healthcare insiders about President Trump’s work on healthcare since he took office in January. Representing many political views from around the country, the majority of responses (coincidentally, we received 100 replies to this survey) were in agreement that the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency lacked clarity on healthcare’s future.
A president is typically judged on his early days in the White House, yet GOP leadership reports now that the first 100 days were too ambitious for major healthcare reform.
In rating Trump’s healthcare appointees on a scale of 1 to 5, 60 percent of respondents gave Trump the lowest score.
Communications by HHS overall received pretty poor marks.
The ideological divide in the attempts to reform (or repeal) the Affordable Care Act have floundered during the first 100 days and our insiders indicated the highest level of disapproval of any of the questions we asked.
There was some snark from our readers, quoting Trump’s favorite Twitter quips like “Sad!” and “Dreadful” but thoughtful comments prevailed from our respondents on each issue.
“Aggressive but unsuccessful” from a reader after giving Trump high marks on appointees and communications with HHS.
“With a GOP majority in both the House and Senate, the healthcare efforts have been a train wreck,” said another respondent who rated Trump’s record poorly.
“President Trump is getting opposition from the Anarchist Democrats,” said another respondent who rated Trump at the highest level on all questions except the president’s efforts to reform the ACA, which was rated the lowest from this particular reader.
Another respondent rating Trump a 5 for his first 100 days overall, also recorded an average score for HHS communications including the comment, “Hard to please everyone. No-one will give in unless they get everything they want. Pitiful. The world doesn't work together anymore too much me me me.”
A respondent with the highest ratings for Trump offered a retrospective on the implementation of the ACA. “What short memories the medical community and country at large have with ACA. This was a major shake up in the industry and it was not a pleasant one. It hasn't been long since ACA went in. (There is no) reason the Healthcare industry can't handle revisions and take them in stride. It’ll likely be less taxing (no pun intended) for providers.”
A critic of Trump’s attempts at ACA reform, this reader gave high marks to appointees and an average score to communication with HHS. This reader offered advice about how Trump should proceed, “…stop trying to win over these Republicans that are hampering his efforts and work with the Democrats to establish his ACA replacement which is more in line with a Democratic plan of making sure everyone has healthcare. The government has to fund the 10 percent of the chronically ill that make up 60 to 70 percent of the healthcare costs in our country. It should not be on the insurers to incur these costs. Defeats the purpose / models of insurance. We need 2 healthcare models. One for only healthy people run by private insurers in a competitive arena and one run by the government for the truly sick and costly that will be administered in a government controlled healthcare arena similar to the VA network of hospitals and care. That's the only way healthcare will ever work.“
Twitter: @wea1021
Email the web producer: wendy.almeida@himssmedia.com
