Trump makes pitch for ObamaCare replacement during rally
President Trump on Wednesday made a pitch for the Republican plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare as the legislation struggles to win support in the House.
During a campaign-style rally Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn., Trump painted himself as an arbiter between different groups within the GOP debating the bill and added that “[we] welcome the healthcare debate and its negotiation.”
“We’re going to arbitrate, we’re going to all get together. We’re going to get something done,” he said. “The end result is when you have phase one, phase two, phase three, it’s going to be great.”
{mosads}House GOP leadership rolled out its plan to repeal key elements of ObamaCare and replace it with a system around age-based tax credits. But the American Health Care Act has been met with strong resistance from conservatives, some of whom have dubbed the proposal “ObamaCare lite.”
The bill is set to be debated by the House Budget Committee Thursday.
“We’re going to carry it out and have been carrying it out in the full light of day, unlike ObamaCare was passed,” Trump said.
But his healthcare talk was relegated to the end of the speech, overshadowed by the recent news that a federal judge had blocked Trump’s revised travel ban, which was set to go into effect just after midnight.
After the rally, Trump spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One briefly about healthcare.
“We will get something through. We’re going to mix it up, we’re going to come up with something. We always do,” he said.
Trump said if ObamaCare is left in place, millions of people will be “forced off their plans.”
{mosads}”Your senators just told me that in your state you’re down to practically no insurers,” he said.
“You’re going to have nobody … and this is true all over. The insurers are fleeing. It’s a catastrophic situation. And theres nothing to compare anything to because ObamaCare wont be around for a year or two. It’s gone.”
Trump has previously voiced support for House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan, which he said echoed the principles he laid out in his address to a joint session of Congress.
Trump went on to attack lawmakers he said made promises related to ObamaCare, saying they have “no credibility whatsoever on healthcare.”
And he said divisiveness in Congress makes the healthcare battle even more difficult.
“And remember this, if we took, because there’s such divisiveness, and I’m not just talking now with me, there was with Obama, there was with Bush, the level of hatred and divisiveness with the politicians,” he said.
“Today, there’s a level that nobody’s seen before. Just remember this, if we submitted the Democrats plan, drawn everything perfect for the Democrats, we wouldn’t get one vote from the Democrats. … That’s how much divisiveness and other things there are.”
Trump, who has been meeting with “victims of ObamaCare,” added that people can’t be “intimidated by the dishonest attacks from Democratic leaders in Congress who broke the system in the first place and who don’t believe you should be able to make your own healthcare decisions.”
“I am very confidence that if we empower the American people, we will accomplish incredible things for our country,” he said. “Not just in healthcare, but all across our government.”
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