Michael Hiltzik: Why the short-term health plans Trump favors are cheap: They shortchange you on care
President Trump and other foes of the Affordable Care Act have made the expansion of short-term health plans a centerpiece of their campaign to gut the ACA.
Their argument is that the plans, which the ACA limits to three-month nonrenewable terms, can bring cheaper coverage to millions of Americans supposedly burdened by the law's mandate that every health plan offer certain minimum benefits.
Two new statistical releases, however, reveal exactly why these plans are less expensive and less useful to the Americans Trump claims to be helping.
They come from the government's own Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
