Trump has not said a lot about healthcare. He certainly made it clear during the campaign that he is skeptical of Obamacare. He has talked about the need to repeal it and replace it, but I doubt that will happen very quickly. It would be easy to abolish it virtually overnight; he could—almost with a stroke of a pen—eliminate government subsidies for the insurance plans for people who do not get health insurance through their employers. I believe that would bring Obamacare to its knees rather quickly.

But that may not be wise politically. People get used to certain kinds of benefits and certain types of coverage. For example, a lot of parents like being able to keep their children on their health plans through the age of 25 years. This makes insurance cheaper for children, and the parents can add them as dependents at a relatively low cost.

Another Obamacare feature that people are quite fond of is the mandate to make insurance available to those with preexisting conditions. This has been a problem for Obamacare, in terms of failing to contain costs. Insuring a group of people who have preexisting conditions is expensive if other, healthier people do not sign up and bear part of the cost of covering those who have diabetes or depression, for example. Still, pulling the coverage out from under folks with preexisting conditions will lead to a lot of upset.

Removing the prohibition on dollar limits of healthcare benefits would also be quite unpopular. For a child with a severe health problem, costs can easily rise above $1 million in terms of a cap on benefits. I am not sure that President Trump will want a public hearing with a lot of desperate parents saying that their children are now unable to get further healthcare because they have reached their dollar limit on healthcare costs. They were okay under Obamacare, but they are not okay if you just simply repeal it. I would look for some accommodation, some compromise.

Even though Trump has said that he will repeal and replace it, I suspect that certain features of Obamacare are so well embedded that they are going to be very tough to get rid of without politically uncomfortable complaints.

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