Friday, September 25, 2020

FACT CHECK: President's New Executive Order Re: Healthcare Explicitly Does...Nothing But Maintain Status Quo, Notwithstanding Sen. McSally Praise (READ Text)

Arizona Senator Martha McSally today lauded President Donald Trump's new Executive Order regarding healthcare, saying that it makes it federal policy to protect individuals with pre-existing conditions and "helps eliminate the surprise medical billing". 

However, the Executive Order itself says that the President had already made it federal policy to protect people with pre-existing conditions. "It has been and will continue to be the policy of the United States... to ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions can obtain the insurance of their choice at affordable rates." (There is a distinction to be made in that statement, too, because the President, the Senator and many Republicans have tried to repeal the protection in the ACA that ensures people with pre-existing conditions do not have to pay higher premiums than others.)

The Executive Order goes on to encourage Congress to ask his Administration to work with Congress on the surprise billing issue, and to take administrative action if Congress fails to pass such a bill by the end of the year.

The rest of the Executive Order was more of a campaign document of all of the great things Congress and the Administration have done during the past four years, and orders that his departments "shall maintain and build upon" them.

Fact Check: The first part of Sen. McSally's tweet is proven FALSE by the text of the Executive Order. The second part is MOSTLY TRUE, because the exhortation can be read as "helping" push Congress along.

Read the Executive Order below:

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

Executive Order on An America-First Healthcare Plan

HEALTHCARE


Issued on: September 24, 2020


By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
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