Republican nominee Donald Trump's claim that healthcare plan premiums in the Affordable Care Act exchanges are increasing by as much as 100% is an exaggeration, but the candidates spent little time digging into the matter.
In the waning moments of the final presidential debate Wednesday, the candidates used a question about entitlements to restate their positions on the ACA. Trump again vowed to “repeal and replace” the law and said that he was glad premiums had gone up, presumably to make his point that President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform law was “destroying our country.”
However, a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis from July showed an average increase of 9% for premiums in the most common exchange plans, which stated that “anecdotal examples of premium hikes or averages across insurers can provide a skewed picture of the increases marketplace enrollees will actually face.”
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who supports building upon the ACA, said repealing the act would make maintaining the solvency of Medicare more difficult. That claim has been found to be mostly accurate.
A blog post from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities states that Medicare is not on the verge of bankruptcy and its “financing challenges would be much greater without the health reform law.”
The candidates also early on were asked whether they would like to see the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the high court ruling that affirmed a woman's right to get an abortion. The next president will have an opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice to fill the vacancy left after Justice Antonin Scalia died earlier this year.
Trump said he would like to see the issue return to the states, while Clinton vehemently supported a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.
