Trump budget chief: Insurance ‘not really the end goal’ with GOP healthcare plan

The director of the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday said insurance is “not really the end goal” of the GOP’s plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare. 

“We’re looking at it a different way … because insurance is not really the end goal here,” Mick Mulvaney said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when asked about his estimate of how many fewer people would have health insurance under the GOP’s plan.

“One of the conservatives’, one of the Republicans’ complaints about the Affordable Care Act from the very beginning, it was a great way to get insurance and a lousy way to actually be able to go to the doctor.”

{mosads}Mulvaney said Republicans are instead looking at what they think is “more important to ordinary people.”

“Can they afford to go to the doctor?” he said.

“We’re absolutely convinced it will be more possible for more people to get better care at the doctor under this plan than it was under ObamaCare.”

Republicans on Monday rolled out two new bills to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

The new legislation would undo ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion and eliminate the individual mandate that requires individuals to purchase health coverage or pay a fine.

The plan, dubbed “TrumpCare” by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), would also create a new tax credit system to incentivize individuals to purchase coverage.

On Tuesday, Mulvaney called ObamaCare an “unmitigated disaster.” He argued former President Obama’s signature healthcare legislation is in “a death spiral.”