By all reckonings, the demographic group most responsible for Donald Trump's presidential victory was working class white voters with no college degrees. They make up 42 percent of the population; 70 percent of them turned out to vote and Trump won 67 percent of their votes.

From one day to the next, it's hard to know what Trump's policies really are. This is not a man with a long and consistent policy record, nor a fealty to fact. But much of what Trump wants will have to be done in cooperation with Congress, a body dominated by Republicans whose intentions do not bode well for Trump's working-class supporters.

Consider the Affordable Care Act, which Trump has vowed to repeal and replace with "something terrific." He told the Wall Street Journal he's rethinking his position, but congressional Republicans aren't. And on Monday, Trump re- waffled, naming two key health policy appointees who want to make drastic changes in programs that benefit Trump's base.

Trump named Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to head the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees all government health care programs. To head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, he named Seema Verma. She is a consultant who advised several Republican governors, including Indiana's Mike Pence, now the vice president-elect, on modifying Obamacare to make it more palatable to conservatives.

Only 70 percent of working-class whites with no college degrees are actually employed, but not all of them have access to health insurance through their jobs. Census Bureau data show that among families with household income of $49,000 or less, the number of uninsured Americans dropped by 8.6 percent in the past two years.

Price, the HHS secretary-designate, is the author of the 242-page "Empowering Patients Act," one of several GOP proposals that would gut the Affordable Care Act. It's an insurance-company friendly measure that would make it cheaper to insure young and healthy Americans and less affordable for the older Americans who are more likely to get sick. In both cases, policies would be less comprehensive.

And then there's Medicaid, the health care program for the poor and disabled. In states that adopted Medicaid expansion plans — like Pence's Indiana — about 15 million more Americans gained coverage through Medicaid. Under most GOP "repeal and replace" plans, most of them would lose it.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., advocates turning Medicaid funding over to state governments. The feds would send states a block grant, possibly for Medicaid (including nursing homes), food stamps, supplemental Social Security for the disabled and Pell Grants as well. States could divvy it up how they want.

All of that, plus changes to Obamacare, could mean a lot of Trump's voters are in for an unpleasant surprise. They can't say they weren't warned.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST LOUIS POST DISPATCH