A lot of the discussion about rolling back the Affordable Care Act is about dismantling the marketplaces where individuals are shopping for their own coverage when they don't get it in their workplace.

The lower income individuals, under any Republican proposal, at least that I have seen, are real losers in the framework because there is not enough subsidy, not enough assistance, for them to realistically participate in the market. Particularly if you halt or rollback the Medicaid expansion, which is for the lowest income workers.

The premium tax credit that is in the Obama plan is exactly that - it is a tax credit, and it isn't cash. It is a discount on the amount that you pay for an individual policy based on your family size and your income.

The Democratic plan in the 'Affordable Care Act' has, I would say, more government support, more government regulation around trying to protect the finances of individuals, trying to protect people who had pre-existing conditions, making sure that they could actually be in an insurance market and not set off to the side.

I'm a former insurance regulator. What companies really want and need is some clarity about what the rules are.

Republican House members, including Tom Price, when he was still in the Republican House, sued HHS, suggesting that payment to insurance companies for cost-sharing exceeded the authority of HHS. That case was basically withdrawn when President Trump was elected, in hopes that the Affordable Care Act would be repealed - but we're back to the law.

The secretary actually already has a good deal of authority within the confines of the Affordable Care Act. Step one really is a question of whether or not HHS will continue to reimburse insurance companies for cost-sharing expenses.

The way the law is written, people who are under 250 percent of poverty, who have a marketplace plan, also are eligible to have some of their deductible and co-pay expenses paid through cost-sharing. Insurance companies basically front the money and are reimbursed by the federal government, by HHS.

There are people in this country who have waited for decades for affordable health coverage for themselves and their families.

Insurance companies can no longer refuse to cover Americans with pre-existing conditions.