Former HHS Sec. Price: Repealing the individual mandate 'will harm' people insured through Obamacare

Eliza Collins | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said Tuesday that repealing the requirement that all Americans have health insurance or face a tax penalty, may not have been such a good idea after all.

The so-called individual mandate had been one of Republicans' most hated provisions of the Affordable Care Act and in December they finally repealed it as part of a larger tax reform bill.

“There are many, and I’m one of them, who believes ... you’ll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks within that market,” Price said during the World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C., according to The Washington Times.

Price, who resigned last fall over criticism of his use of private airplanes, had said when he was in office that he was against the individual mandate. He said the requirement was “actually driving up the cost for the American people in terms of coverage," according to The Fiscal Times.

Last year, Price was one of the Trump Administration's key players in the months-long attempt to repeal the health care law which would have included getting rid of the individual mandate. The House passed a bill last May, but Senate Republicans were unable to agree on a plan and ultimately the effort failed. But, in December Republicans were able to nix the individual mandate as part of their tax reform legislation.

Democrats were quick to celebrate the comments.

"We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves," the office of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said in an email with the link to the comments.

“I’m glad to see former Secretary Price admit the truth," said Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Health Labor and Pensions Committee. "Former Secretary Price’s comments make it absolutely clear who families should hold accountable—President Trump and Congressional Republicans.”

“Republicans are working over time to prove our points on healthcare and taxes," Tyler Law, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats' campaign arm. Law pointed to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., saying recently to The Economist that after the GOP tax bill "there's no evidence whatsoever that the money's been massively poured back into the American worker." Rubio voted for the tax bill.

Price's comments come the same day the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that studies health care and says it is focused on helping the most needy members of society, came out with a study that found since 2016 4 million working-age people no longer have insurance coverage. The foundation said the drop in coverage was not connected to a repeal in the individual mandate but instead due to weaknesses with the current health care law that remain unfixed and the Trump Administration’s cuts to advertising and outreach related to getting people signed up for Obamacare.