GOP/HIV-AIDS/OBAMACARE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump wants to eliminate HIV in the U.S., contain the opioid crisis and lower the cost of prescription drugs — but all of those need Obamacare to be successful. And Trump just promised to kill it. His HIV plan relies on key pieces of Obamacare to expand access to prevention and treatment services for Americans at risk of contracting the deadly virus. Expanding opioid prevention relies heavily on Medicaid, which expanded under Obamacare. And Trump’s push to lower drug prices would use an innovation program that tests drug cost modeling — and was created by Obamacare. So while the notion of killing Obamacare altogether arouses the GOP base, the reality is that the decade-old law is so intertwined with the entire U.S. health care system that repealing large chunks of it would destroy the ability to do things Trump actually likes. Even members of Trump’s team have raised red flags. Outgoing Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Thursday that overturning Obamacare could thwart an initiative to get cheaper forms of insulin on the market. Carl Schmid, an AIDS Institute leader and co-chair of Trump’s HIV advisory board, called the ACA decision ‘an unfortunate distraction from ending the HIV epidemic initiative.’”
–Sarah Karlin-Smith, “How killing Obamacare could backfire for Trump,” Politico, April 1, 2019 5:03 am