Trump Announces Obamacare Replacement. Guess what? It's Obamacare.

I, and many others, have suggested (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) that Donald Trump and the GOP's "terrific!" replacement for the Affordable Care Act could very well be to simply rebrand it as "TrumpCare", declare victory and call it a day.

I'm realize that Paul Ryan and Tom Price have other (terrible) ideas, but reading the latest goat entrails which make up Donald Trump's blathering suggest that he's now decided to do pretty much that (granted, that could have easily changed while I was typing that last sentence). Via Maggie Fox of NBC:

President-elect Trump just promised that private insurance companies can help lower costs and get health insurance to more Americans.

But private health insurance already forms the basis of the Obamacare exchanges that Republicans have vowed to raze. And a conversation with just about any American covered by private health insurance makes it's immediately clear that the private health insurance industry is a source of many, if not most, of the frustrations of managing health insurance.

"We're going to get private insurance companies to take care of a lot of the people that can afford it. That's going to take a tremendous burden off and they're going to be able to have plans that are great plans," Trump said in an interview aired Wednesday on the Fox news channel.

That's pretty close to the goals of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare or the ACA.

Jesus Christ. How in God's name does he think ACA exchange enrolless are covered now?

Don't answer that, please. I might just have to slit my wrists, and if Obamacare is repealed, attempted suicide would probably be considered a pre-existing condition (and mental health services wouldn't be covered anyway).

There's been a lot of buzz lately about Trump voters (and, sadly, even some non-Trumpsters) who aren't aware the "Obamacare" and "The Affordable Care Act" are the same thing, to the point that I've whipped up the graphic below.

It now appears that I'll have to create another infographic which also explains that The ACA (Obamacare) exchanges are simply a means for enrolling in PRIVATE INSURANCE POLICIES through PRIVATE INSURANCE CARRIERS. The main purpose for doing so via the ACA exchanges is so the federal government can determine whether you qualify for financial assistance or not. There are a few other reasons as well, but that's by far the primary reason.