Hours after being sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing the federal government to start dismantling the Affordable Care Act.
The order offers few specifics, but in a few paragraphs, it does give agencies affected by the ACA the authority to waive or delay implementation of any part of the law that would “impose a fiscal burden on any State or a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden” on individuals, insurers, drug companies, etc.
It also promotes the creation of a system to allow the sale of insurance across state lines, something Republicans have said will increase competition in the health care market.
Trump cannot fully repeal the law by executive order. And Friday night’s order offers no concrete policies or rules, so it’s impossible to say exactly what will happen, or on what time frame. Larry Levitt, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit focused on healthcare policy, tweeted that the biggest change could be Trump’s encouragement of waivers to bypass the individual mandate.