A top ethics official has warned that plans to confirm Donald Trump’s top Cabinet choices before background examinations are complete are unprecedented and have overwhelmed government investigators responsible for the reviews.
The concerns prompted Democrats on Saturday to call for delaying the confirmation process, but Republicans signaled they are unlikely to budge on the eve of a slew of hearings in the Senate.
The Trump administration-in-waiting faces its first big test in coming days, with as many as seven nominees for Cabinet positions — many of them already the subject of questions about their qualifications — scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill.
Despite agitating for repeal for the past half-decade, Republicans have failed to unite around any Obamacare alternative, and they do not appear close now. Detailed proposals that have circulated among Republicans over the past several years would almost certainly result in a much skimpier system — covering fewer Americans and degrading the quality of coverage for low-income and sick people who manage to buy it.
Republicans are bumping into some awkward facts, where ideology cannot repeal basic logic. There is no health-care reform that will lower premiums, cut deductibles and increase choice all at the same time, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s rhetoric.
Moreover, an insurance-based health-care system requires pooling many people together so that premiums from healthy people offset the costs of treating the sick — and keep costs reasonable for everyone. Fiddling with regulations that compel people to buy insurance, allowing insurers more room to discriminate against older or sicker people, reducing benefits requirements — all of these could give insurers more opportunity to welcome healthy people and deter the sick, to the benefit of their pocketbooks but the detriment of society as a whole.
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