DON'T CALL IT 'JUNK' INSURANGE-AND DON'T RESTRICT ITS SALE.

• Author: Suderman, Peter
• Position: U.S. President Joe Biden's policy on health insurance

DONALD TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY began with a fruitless quest to repeal and replace Obamacare. The effort, which chewed up much of Washington's attention during 2017, failed in part because neither Trump nor congressional Republicans managed to unify around a single plan. Trump, in particular, seemed unable to even explain the basics of what the various replacement plans were attempting to do; at best he promised health care that was "better" and "cheaper."

Yet out of the ashes of policy failure, the Trump administration did deliver an under-the-radar improvement to the health insurance marketplace, by loosening some of Obamacare's insurance rules.

Obamacare was designed on the premise that health insurance should be comprehensive. One of the law's major components was a list of "essential health benefits" that every plan sold through the law's insurance exchanges were required to include. Anything less was derided as "junk insurance" because it didn't cover every possible health care eventuality.

This had predictable consequences. The highly regulated insurance sold under Obamacare offered a greater array of benefits. It was also substantially more expensive, which proved particularly troublesome for families whose household incomes were just high enough not to qualify for the law's subsidies. Health insurance premiums rose throughout Barack Obama's presidency.

The Trump administration saw this as an opportunity: Why not use executive authority to deregulate cheaper plans with fewer...