Sign up for our daily briefing
Make your busy days simpler with Axios AM/PM. Catch up on what's new and why it matters in just 5 minutes.
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Denver news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Denver
Des Moines news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Des Moines
Minneapolis-St. Paul news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Twin Cities
Tampa Bay news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Tampa Bay
Charlotte news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Charlotte
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
The early consensus on President Trump's executive order is that it could cause problems with insurers — because it's so vague, but could be read as an attack on the individual mandate. Insurers want clear signals about what's next, so it's a good bet that muddying the waters isn't going to help.
The possible weakening of the mandate is the angle that's dominating the national coverage, including the Washington Post's writeup, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Saturday that the order "appears to target the individual mandate."
There's an important caveat, though: The executive order doesn't do anything more than set goals for the agencies, which won't officially be under new leadership until President Trump's team is in place.
"This order doesn't by itself do anything. It sends marching orders to federal agencies but doesn't grant them any new powers," said Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation. However, he said, "my reading is that the order is signaling loosening up on the individual mandate and required benefits, and giving states more flexibility."
Nicholas Bagley, a respected legal expert on Obamacare, has a good post up about how to decode the language on flexibility. He says the broad language on waivers or exemptions for costs, fees, taxes, and other burdens:
[R]eads like bureaucratic code for 'kill the individual mandate by any means possible.'
And here's how Andy Slavitt, the outgoing chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, responded to the executive order on Twitter:
Unsupported embed type
Levitt agreed that the uncertainty itself is the biggest problem: "Something we can be certain of is that this order creates much more uncertainty for insurers just as they're formulating their plans for 2018."