Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcasts. As former Trump
Speaker 1: campaign chairman Paul maniforts tax and bank fraud trial continues
Speaker 1: in Virginia, President Trump has lashed out at Special counsel
Speaker 1: Robert Mueller on Twitter, telling Attorney General Jeff Sessions to
Speaker 1: end Mueller's investigation. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders
Speaker 1: said the president's tweet was not a directive the president
Speaker 1: stating his opinion, um, it's not in order, but he's
Speaker 1: been I think crystal clear about how he feels about
Speaker 1: this investigation from the beginning. Joining us as Bloomberg in
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg studios in Washington. It's Kevin Whitelaw, Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Deputy Managing editor, Kevin how how is that playing Sarah
Speaker 1: sanders explanation and Rudy Giuliani's explanation of why President Trump's
Speaker 1: tweet was not an order. Well, I do think that
Speaker 1: we've seen, we've seen the president at various points, at
Speaker 1: various times, rail against his own attorney general, rail against
Speaker 1: the probe, rail against Robert Muller, and so on some level,
Speaker 1: you can just sort of see this as part of
Speaker 1: the continuum. But but this one did strike a lot
Speaker 1: of people as a little different. It started to sound
Speaker 1: a little closer to an order, a little closer to
Speaker 1: a uh something beyond a recommendation, but maybe not quite
Speaker 1: an order. So um, you know, everyone's always looking for
Speaker 1: sort of where the where the temperature is and has
Speaker 1: something shifted in the air when it comes to what
Speaker 1: Trump might actually do with regard to the probe. Up
Speaker 1: to now, his lawyers have been able to largely keep
Speaker 1: him on track and keep him cooperating, but you know,
Speaker 1: the frustration level has clearly been building um over time,
Speaker 1: and he's got a lot of people both inside the
Speaker 1: White House but also outside the White House sort of
Speaker 1: egging him on and and wanting him to pick a fight.
Speaker 1: And this isn't like, you know, your neighbor expressing an
Speaker 1: opinion his president United States, and that's right, but you know,
Speaker 1: he also does know how to issue orders, and and
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, he tweeted it is a
Speaker 1: little different than an actual order. So, um, you know,
Speaker 1: whether we whether he's actually testing the waters or blowing
Speaker 1: out steam, or or preparing to do something, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we're we've all been trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1: But we've sort of been on on watch for this
Speaker 1: for quite a long time, and at least it hasn't
Speaker 1: happened yet. I do know he's gotten very very strong
Speaker 1: warnings for the past year from a lot of center Republicans.
Speaker 1: They don't want him to act against Mueller. Um, they
Speaker 1: don't want him to act against Rosenstein, and they really
Speaker 1: don't want it to happen before the mid term. So
Speaker 1: all of those things are still true, and he's still
Speaker 1: getting that message. But but you know, he's he's he's
Speaker 1: you know, clearly uh frustrated by by the pace of this.
Speaker 1: It is import though, to understand even amid all of
Speaker 1: this noise and all of these attacks and all of
Speaker 1: the vitriol and all of the accusations, his lawyers and
Speaker 1: Mueller's team have still been talking and negotiating, exchanging proposals
Speaker 1: over what it might look like for the for the
Speaker 1: president to sit down and do an interview with with
Speaker 1: Robert Mueller's so UM there was just as recently as
Speaker 1: earlier this week. We know that Mueller's people came back
Speaker 1: with with with their latest proposal UH answering an earlier
Speaker 1: one from from Trump from about eleven days ago. So
Speaker 1: this is this. Even though they're not close, even though
Speaker 1: it's not clear they'll ever get to a deal, they're
Speaker 1: actually still talking despite all this noise. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: any lawyer encouraging Trump, with his many conflicting statements, to
Speaker 1: sit down for an interview. But there are persistent reports
Speaker 1: that he wants to do it, and that's right. The
Speaker 1: belief is he wants to do it. He wants to
Speaker 1: show that he can do it. He certainly believes he
Speaker 1: can handle it. He thinks he's he thinks he's good
Speaker 1: in these situations. He has had an umber of lawyers
Speaker 1: UM including some who have since left his team, who
Speaker 1: have been very strongly opposed to it. We know that
Speaker 1: John Dowd, who was his personal attorney um UH until
Speaker 1: the spring and been deeply involved in a lot of
Speaker 1: the early prep work and a lot of the early
Speaker 1: cooperation with Miller's team, was adamantly opposed to the notion
Speaker 1: of an interview. So, uh, you know, I think there's uh,
Speaker 1: he's he's got his lawyers are there are definitely on
Speaker 1: the cautious side. They're going to be trying to if
Speaker 1: they end up allowing it, make it absolutely as limited
Speaker 1: in scope and limited in questions as possible. You know,
Speaker 1: I do think they understand there are some risks to
Speaker 1: simply refusing to sit for an interview at all, but
Speaker 1: they certainly can drag out the process, and and to
Speaker 1: the degree they drag it out into into the fall,
Speaker 1: it becomes difficult potentially to conduct that interview with the
Speaker 1: mid terms, uh, and and avoid accusations of it being
Speaker 1: a political act. And Kevin Wild we've been speaking of
Speaker 1: the president's national security advisor, John Bolton has been speaking
Speaker 1: and these headlines just hitting the Bloomberg Riminal in the
Speaker 1: last few seconds. Bolton says Trump determined to prevent election
Speaker 1: influence and that the president has been confronting the Russians
Speaker 1: to stop meddling. This in the wake of the news
Speaker 1: from Facebook that it had shut down some questionable feeds
Speaker 1: and and uh and pages. Yeah, this comes from a
Speaker 1: letter that Bolton sent to uh answer Senate Democrats about
Speaker 1: their complaints that that the administration wasn't doing anything to
Speaker 1: to take a wasn't taking the election security issues seriously enough.
Speaker 1: So this is uh uh, the latest defense of Bolton
Speaker 1: saying that actually, there's a bunch of steps we have taken.
Speaker 1: We're taking it seriously. Um. It is one of these
Speaker 1: interesting things where a number of different people in the
Speaker 1: administration um, including the intelligence National Intelligence Director Dan Coates,
Speaker 1: have all issued very strong warnings about Russia and what
Speaker 1: it might do, but the President himself has has has
Speaker 1: you know, rarely been very rarely been as outspoken and
Speaker 1: critical in this issue, and it does seem that he's
Speaker 1: had a little trouble separating the notion of accusations and
Speaker 1: and and conclusions about Russian meddling from from any sense
Speaker 1: that his own electoral victory might somehow be called into
Speaker 1: question by acknowledging this. Kevin, we just have a minute here,
Speaker 1: But what might set off another tweet storm is that
Speaker 1: a bipartisan group of senators are introducing legislation to impose
Speaker 1: new sanctions on Russia for interfering in US elections. In
Speaker 1: about forty five seconds, tell us about that. Well, that's right,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting group of senators you have Lindsay Graham, UM,
Speaker 1: who you know, for the most time, for the most part,
Speaker 1: tries to be allied with Trump. UM has has paired
Speaker 1: up with John McCain, who's who's back home and ill
Speaker 1: and Corey Gardner of Colorado, UH and several Democrats to
Speaker 1: put in this measure of sanctions. UM. Obviously we're talking
Speaker 1: about something that that is still you know, months away,
Speaker 1: if ever, from from being enacted the houses out for
Speaker 1: for the summer. UM. But it is a clear signal,
Speaker 1: at least in the part of Republicans in Congress, that
Speaker 1: they want this administration to take the issue of Russian
Speaker 1: Russian medaling much more. All right, thanks so much, Kevin.
Speaker 1: That's Kevin Whitelaw, Bloomberg News Deputy managing editor. Yesterday, the
Speaker 1: Trump administration announced that it would boost short term health
Speaker 1: plans as the White House continues to expand alternatives to Obamacare.
Speaker 1: Speaking with Bloomberg yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex
Speaker 1: asar discussed the plans, which have a history of consumer complaints.
Speaker 1: These plans are likely going to be most attractive to
Speaker 1: those kinds of people that I mentioned, who are in transition,
Speaker 1: who don't have access to affordable care who've been priced
Speaker 1: out of the Obamacare markets. That's really where the where
Speaker 1: the population is going to come through going into these plans.
Speaker 1: Joining us in our Bloomberg eleven thirties studios in New
Speaker 1: York is Zach Tracer, Bloomberg News healthcare reporter, so Zach,
Speaker 1: these plans were originally intended for people who needed insurance
Speaker 1: between jobs. Tell us about them, that's right. So these
Speaker 1: are these are plans that um sort of emerges away.
Speaker 1: You know, if you have a month or two without
Speaker 1: health insurance, maybe, um, you can buy some coverage that
Speaker 1: will protect you in case, you know, you get hit
Speaker 1: by a bus or something, or you know, get sick. Um.
Speaker 1: And what the Trump administration is doing here is really
Speaker 1: crafting a bigger role for these plans. Um you'd be
Speaker 1: allowed to have this coverage for up to a year,
Speaker 1: and you could potentially renew it so that it would
Speaker 1: last for up to three years. UM. So all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you've gone from these short term plans with
Speaker 1: you know, essentially a three month duration to up to
Speaker 1: three years. Quite a quite a big change. So these
Speaker 1: plans are cheaper, but as you write in your story
Speaker 1: on the terminal they have a long history of patient complaints.
Speaker 1: What are they? That's right? So these plans have a
Speaker 1: couple big issues. One is that they won't cover pre
Speaker 1: existing conditions. And now that sounds okay. So you're going
Speaker 1: and you're buying this plan and you say, okay, I
Speaker 1: know that you know I have these conditions that it
Speaker 1: won't cover. Here's the problem with these plans UM. If you,
Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden it turns out you
Speaker 1: have cancer or something, what the insurer is going to
Speaker 1: do is they're going to look back at your medical
Speaker 1: history and say, did you have this cancer before you
Speaker 1: bought the insurance, even if you didn't know about it,
Speaker 1: And in some cases that will be enough to UM
Speaker 1: to make it so that your cancer care isn't covered.
Speaker 1: And that's a sort of a big loophole here. And
Speaker 1: in some states you can't even buy these plans. Why
Speaker 1: have those states decided that these plans are not good enough?
Speaker 1: That's right. So in UM, in New York, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and Massachusetts, you can't really buy this kind of insurance
Speaker 1: at all. UM. Other states have their own limits, and
Speaker 1: a lot of states are actually looking now at sort
Speaker 1: of what their approach to regulating this insurance should be.
Speaker 1: There's you know, for instance, and effort to ban these
Speaker 1: plans in California, and the argument is essentially, you know,
Speaker 1: number one, we don't think this coverage is very good
Speaker 1: for people, and number two, it's sort of pulls you know,
Speaker 1: generally healthier people out of the insurance pools um and
Speaker 1: you know that sort of undermines how insurance works. You know,
Speaker 1: when you have a good functioning insurance market, you need
Speaker 1: lots of healthy people in there, you know, to essentially
Speaker 1: cover the cost for the few sick people that you have.
Speaker 1: And you know, as those healthy people leave, the cost
Speaker 1: for every else just goes up. And that's a problem
Speaker 1: in state's like you know, California are looking at this
Speaker 1: market now saying what should we do about it? But
Speaker 1: you're not writing that the administration is trying to oversell
Speaker 1: these because Secretary as Are actually said in his interview
Speaker 1: with US yesterday, they may not be right for everybody.
Speaker 1: That's right, And I think the administration sort of goes
Speaker 1: back and forth and how they want to talk about
Speaker 1: these plans. So Secretary is Are, i think has been
Speaker 1: pretty clear in saying, you know, these plans aren't right
Speaker 1: for everybody. UM. You know, they're they're an alternative for
Speaker 1: you know, some folks who have been priced out of
Speaker 1: the affordable carreacts markets. You know, people that make a
Speaker 1: little bit catastrophic. Yeah, exactly that that these plans are
Speaker 1: sort of catastrophic. UM in some cases. UM, Obamacare has
Speaker 1: turned out to be pretty resilient. What are some of
Speaker 1: the other things that have been done to sort of
Speaker 1: try to weaken Obamacare. So this is just the latest
Speaker 1: in a string of regulatory actions and UM, congressional actions
Speaker 1: that we've seen over the last year or so that
Speaker 1: you know, essentially have the effect of we can the
Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act. So we saw the requirement that everybody
Speaker 1: by insurance, the individual mandate UM that was repealed in
Speaker 1: the tax cut law. UM. We've seen the administration also
Speaker 1: allows something called association health plans, which are UM sort
Speaker 1: of small business health plans UM, similar to to the
Speaker 1: stuff that we're talking about right here. UM. And we've
Speaker 1: seen them cut a lot of money from sort of
Speaker 1: marketing and outreach. So, you know, one of the important
Speaker 1: things that we talked about with insurance is that everybody
Speaker 1: buys it. In the administration has really pulled back on
Speaker 1: some of these efforts to you know, convince people to
Speaker 1: do so advertising marketing and also you know, help signing up. So,
Speaker 1: when the healthcare exchanges open up for enrollment this fall,
Speaker 1: will these short term plans be an option? Will these
Speaker 1: business business association plans be an option in there? Yes,
Speaker 1: So both both of these kinds of plans will be
Speaker 1: available around sort of September, October November. Around that timeframe.
Speaker 1: They won't be on you know, healthcare dot gov, which
Speaker 1: is where you go to buy affordable character insurance. They
Speaker 1: won't be available sort of next to these affordable carrot plans.
Speaker 1: They'll be available you know, separately, you know, from brokers
Speaker 1: and associations and things like that, but they will be available,
Speaker 1: you know, starting right around the same time. So Senate
Speaker 1: Democrats say they're going to try to force a vote
Speaker 1: that would reverse the Trump policy to expand access to
Speaker 1: these plans that don't comply with the Obamacare's coverage requirements.
Speaker 1: So what do you think do you think that will
Speaker 1: get very far? That's right? So Senate Democrats today announced
Speaker 1: the plan to um put up a resolution essentially disapproving
Speaker 1: of this administrative action UM. And so what that would
Speaker 1: do is is basically put lawmakers on the record as
Speaker 1: to whether or not they support UM. This move by
Speaker 1: the administration and what Democrats are hoping to do is
Speaker 1: make healthcare a big issue in this election. It's been
Speaker 1: a really a winning message UM for Democrats going into
Speaker 1: the you know, November midterms, and they would love to
Speaker 1: just kind of keep um, you know, emphasizing that they
Speaker 1: are protecting you, um, you know, from all this stuff
Speaker 1: that the Republicans are trying to do. It's a great article,
Speaker 1: and you spoke to a lot of people who have
Speaker 1: had problems with these plans, and a Georgetown professor said
Speaker 1: it's a buyer beware situation. Thanks so much for being here, Zach.
Speaker 1: That's Zach Tracer. He's Bloomberg News healthcare reporter. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and
Speaker 1: listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg