Okay, so that makes things even trickier. He’ll be constantly disrupting Manhattan with his comings and goings. I guess he’d have to be driven to and from LaGuardia. I have to wonder if he’s even thought this through.
Wouldn’t it be wild if after a year in office, it turns out he’s really a pragmatic guy and his actions are more in line with Democratic Party positions, so that the GOP hates him and wants him gone but the Dems consider him “flexible” or something and want him to stay? That would be hilarious! Y’all read it here first, folks!
I know that Presidents have visited NY City many times, so the Secret Service certainly has a procedure. But I have to believe that it’s always been at least somewhat disruptive, and to live there and come and go on a regular basis seems totally impractical.
And keeping the preexisting conditions protection logically leads to mandates which logically leads to… the ACA!
With private insurance you can’t have meaningful preexisting protections without requiring healthy people to purchase coverage (otherwise the industry fails), and if you require everyone to purchase coverage then you have to have subsidies for those who can’t afford it. There’s no way around it.
Mitt Romney knew this, as do most honest Republicans who have thought it through.
That may very well be true, but a) there is no individual mandate with any force now as it stands, which might be why prices are rising so fast, and b) not everything in ACA is strictly necessary. You don’t need coverage mandates, in fact the coverage mandates make insurance more expensive. Making certain things “free” doesn’t make them actually free, it just raises the cost of other co-pays. When the ACA coverage mandates kicked in, co-pays for things that weren’t “free” went up.
I expected Trump to quickly shift more to the middle. He’s not going to govern as a far right candidate. He will be a conservative.
Choosing Priebus is a good step towards working with Congress.
I am a little surprised. Isn’t the chief of staff usually a long time friend and supporter of the President? Basically an extension of the man?
I guess Trump’s inexperience in politics gave him few options. His closest friends and advisor are in the business world.
The Trump Presidency will be a work in progress. He has to learn and learn quickly. Leading a nation is a unique responsibility that he has to get right.
Third, if I count what I thought myself the second he announced. (Support for UHC, support for tax increases, acknowledging that 9/11 occurred during Bush’s reign, gay marriage, transgender bathrooms… He might well be the least conservative presidential candidate running in a generation, perhaps going back to Eisenhower. Not that I would have voted for him, or Clinton.)
I’m pretty sure that’s who he really is, a classic Northeastern Republican in the Giuliani mold. That’s why Giuliani and Christie are his best buds.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if Trump was the guy to break the partisan warfare cycle? I mean, this guy isn’t just a Northeastern Republican, he’s a guy who actually has known a lot of the major players for a long time. People talk about how he’s totally unprepared for the Presidency but in one respect he’s probably as prepared as anyone: he personally knows all the big players. The relationships are already established. Of course he’s going to give Chuck Schumer input, he’s probably known Chuck Schumer longer than Clinton has!
One thing that people know but tend to not take into account is that Trump has been a major player for longer than Clinton. Trump was a household name when Bill Clinton started in politics. He’s forgotten the names of more DC insiders than the last few Presidents combined ever knew. Of course, that makes him the ultimate insider, which is why his election by people seeking change was such a weird thing.
Coverage mandates are part of the ACA but you’re correct that they have no teeth. This is one of its weaknesses, in my opinion. And yes, prices are going up. Mine certainly is, although i have to say that it’s not skyrocketing as much as I thought it would.
I was speaking in general when I said it leads to the ACA. Perhaps I should have said “something like the ACA”. Obviously there can be an infinite number of variations on the details of such a plan and political realities will lead to things such as some services having the appearance of being free.
Problem is, Reagan was likeable. Trump is not. Few people except deplorable dictators around the world and deplorable Trump supporters are going to want to shake his hand.