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Tom Price: What His Nomination Means for the ACA Moving Forward

Gage Skidmore
Congressman Tom Price of Georgia speaking at CPAC

On this politics day edition of River to River, Ben Kieffer talks with political analysts, Tim Hagle and Justin Holmes, about President-Elect Donald Trump’s latest cabinet picks and what the current appointees may plan to do if approved by the Senate.

Trump most recently nominated Georgia Rep. Tom Price as secretary of Health and Human Services. Price has been a consistent opponent of the Affordable Care Act in Congress, and he’s developed an alternative plan to replace the ACA.

Hagle doesn't expect the popular aspects of the ACA to be abolished.

"It will certainly keep the things like having children be on their parents' insurance until they're 26, the prohibition against not allowing people on with pre-existing conditions, those are going to stay regardless," says Hagle. "I suspect that it will be more of a process over time, the change away from what we would think of as Obamacare to something new, rather than some stark change overnight with one piece of legislation."

While Holmes agrees with Hagle to an extent, he's not as sure that the most popular parts of the plan will stay in place.

"I'm a little less sure about the preexisting condition component of it. I think that's pretty popular, but in terms of just a ban on denying people, I'm not sure that that's going to stick around because it's contingent on so many of the other things that are in there already," he says.

Tim Hagle is an associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, and Justin Holmes is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa.

Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River