During the battle over Obamacare, conservatives breathlessly accused liberals of executing a radical transformation of the country’s health care system. In reality, Obamacare left insurance for the vast majority of the country untouched, while expanding access for people who had been too sick or too poor to afford insurance before.

But if Donald Trump’s selection of Congressman Tom Price as his Secretary of Health and Human Services is any indication, the real radical transformation of health care is now on its way. If you thought Obamacare was a government overreach, wait until you see what Trumpcare has in store.

As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Price would be tasked with managing and implementing the nation’s most important health care laws and programs. A physician and ardent Obamacare foe, Price has a number of ideas about changing our health insurance system.



For now, congressional Republicans are hoping to enact a “repeal and delay” of Obamacare, under the dubious presumption that stalling on actual reforms will avoid upending the health insurance industry. But sooner or later, the GOP will come under pressure from both within and without to execute its long-promised overhaul of the system. And Price’s ideas, which are well within the mainstream of Republican thought, would disrupt nearly every form of health insurance in the country, from Obamacare’s individual plans to Medicare to even employer-provided coverage.

Obamacare guaranteed certain benefits that insurers must provide and extended insurance coverage to about 20 million people through its Medicaid expansion, private marketplaces for individuals, and other coverage provisions. That’s a major accomplishment—one that has driven the uninsured rate to historic lows. But in a country of more than 320 million people, Obamacare’s supposed “government takeover” of health insurance was in fact quite modest, facilitating coverage for about 6 percent of the country.