Trump to sign order enhancing Medicare, heads to Florida to slam Dems' plans

President Trump will sign an executive order Thursday aimed at improving the Medicare program for seniors, hoping to redirect the 2020 conversation from his failure to overhaul President Barack Obama’s program to his step-by-step efforts to improve health care across the board.

Mr. Trump will promote the order in The Villages, Florida, a huge retirement community that’s home to many people who rely on the government insurance program for Americans 65 or older.

Officials said the order will expand seniors’ choices, increase access to their health data and promote “telehealth” services that allow patients and doctors to interact from afar. It also scrubs regulations to make sure seniors are not steered into traditional Medicare over Medicare Advantage plans, which are operated by private companies that contract with the government.

Mr. Trump will contrast his approach with Democrats’ plans to expand coverage through polarizing ideas like government-run “Medicare for All,” which his administration views as a “socialist” push to upend health plans that millions of people know and enjoy.

“They like what they have, so the president is going to protect it,” Health Secretary Alex Azar said on a conference call hosted by the White House.

Mr. Trump swept into office pledging to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a health plan that offered “insurance for everybody,” though his GOP allies were unable to send a bill to his desk in 2017.

The president settled for incremental changes, such as expanding access to cheaper, barebones coverage and pushing Congress to zero out the “individual mandate” penalty for shirking insurance as part of the GOP’s broad tax overhaul.

Mr. Trump this year said he would like to take another stab at replacing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, only to backtrack and say major votes would have to wait until after the 2020 election.