DeSantis says his health care plan would ‘supersede’ ObamaCare

GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said his health care plan will replace ObamaCare if he is elected to the White House, promising that his full plan will be released in the spring. 

NBC’s Kristen Welker pressed DeSantis, the Florida governor, to address former President Trump’s vow to repeal and replace ObamaCare — a promise that he failed to keep during his time in the White House.

“Here’s what I will do. What I think they’re going to need to do is have a plan that will supersede ObamaCare, that will lower prices for people so that they can afford health care while also making sure that people will preexisting conditions are protected. And we’re going to look at the big institutions that are causing prices to be high: Big Pharma, big insurance and big government,” he said Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

However, he offered scant details for his proposal when asked what “supersede” meant. He said that his plan will have coverage that is “different and better” at the “lowest possible price.”

“We need to have a health care plan that works,” he said when asked whether he will repeal and replace ObamaCare. “ObamaCare hasn’t worked. We are going to replace and supersede with a better — better plan.”

He said his team’s proposal would “definitely be addressing insurance, we’ll definitely be addressing big government, and we will be addressing Big Pharma.”

When pushed for specifics, DeSantis said there would be “more transparency, more consumer choice, more affordable options, less red tape, less bureaucracy weighing everybody down.”

“And, for example, we need price transparency. If you want to lower prices, you need to have markets actually work,” he said. “Look, nobody knows how much anything costs. Well, of course it’s not going to lower prices. There’s third-party payers.”

“So we’re going to have transparency, and then we’re going to have folks have health plans available, so that if they do choose a procedure that’s cheaper than the one down the street that they actually share in the savings with lower premiums,” he continued.

Trump emphasized last week that he wanted to replace ObamaCare, not “terminate” it. He also said last week that he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to one of former President Obama’s signature pieces of legislation.

This came as a surprise to Republicans, who have largely strayed away from the health care debate in recent years as the topic has become a losing issue for them. Trump also noted that the failure to repeal the law in 2017 was a “a low point for the Republican Party.”