West Wing Reads: President Trump Could Revolutionize the Private Health Insurance Market

President Trump Could Revolutionize the Private Health Insurance Market “For decades, economists and health-care experts have warned about flawed incentives and rising costs in America’s system for employer-sponsored health insurance. That system, through which more than 150 million Americans get their coverage, has proved difficult to reform — until now,” healthcare expert Avik Roy writes in The Washington Post. “Last week, the White House finalized a rule that allows employers to fund health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) that can be used by workers to buy their own coverage on the individual market . . .  Some in Washington want to take health insurance choices away from workers and replace them with the diktats of politicians. The Trump initiative moves in the opposite direction, placing health- care choices right where they have always belonged: in the hands of hard-working Americans.” Click here to read more.

Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross are in Charlotte today for an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting. “The American Workforce Policy Advisory Board was created last year by executive order ‘to encourage the private sector and educational institutions to combat the skills crisis by investing in and increasing demand-driven education,’” Brian Murphy writes in The Charlotte Observer.

“USMCA improves virtually every component of the old NAFTA, and Florida’s agriculture industry stands to gain significantly,” Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue writes in the Tallahassee Democrat. “Certain folks have been saying USMCA will not protect Florida farmers from cheap Mexican fruits and vegetables. They neglect to mention farmers already face such competition under NAFTA. And they overlook the ways the administration is fighting for a level playing field.”

“Lockheed Martin said Monday that [they] will spend $142 million and hire 326 new workers over the next few years as it expands its southern Arkansas facility,” Andrew DeMillo reports for The Associated Press. “The Maryland-based company announced the expansion of its plant in Camden, about 85 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of Little Rock. The facility currently employs about 700 workers.”

“U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross credited the Trump administration’s ‘America-first economic policies’ for new jobs and low unemployment rates across the country, including Virginia,” Amy Friedenberger writes in The Roanoke Times. The U.S. unemployment rate is currently 3.6 percent—the lowest in nearly 50 years—and Virginia’s has dipped even lower to 2.9 percent.