President Donald Trump said Monday that Obamacare is ‘finished,’ ‘dead,’ and ‘gone’ as he bragged about ending subsidies to insurers.
‘I cut off the gravy train,’ Trump boasted during a meeting with his Cabinet, calling the payments a ‘disgrace’ because they pad the pockets of insurers instead of helping poor people.
The president claimed a ‘short-term fix’ to the health law under development in Congress that may have the support of Democrats.
President Donald Trump said Monday that Obamacare is ‘finished,’ ‘dead,’ and ‘gone’ as he bragged about ending subsidies to insurers
A permanent replacement will be ready by next spring, he said then, and again later during an impromptu news conference where he said the sluggish pace of of Republicans’ repeal and replace efforts doesn’t mean health reform is doomed.
Standing next to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trump noted that other administrations pursued health reform for years before they made progress.
‘This man is going to get it done, and I think get it done long before anybody else, and I think it’s going to be a great healthcare,’ Trump said.
Trump said Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill had been engaged in emergency talks since he issued an executive order last week ending cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers.
The federal government has paid out about $7 billion of that money already this year.
A White House statement last Thursday evening pointed to a federal court ruling that said the payments were never authorized by Congress as justification for Trump’s decision to end the subsidies.
‘The insurance companies have made a fortune with Obamacare — an absolute fortune,’ Trump told reporters on Monday. ‘You’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars a month going right into the pockets of the insurance companies. And I’m very happy with what I did,’ he said in the White House Rose Garden.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that hit inboxes as Trump was talking that his caucus is hopeful an agreement that ‘stabilizes and improves the existing system under the Affordable Care Act’ will pass.
‘We certainly welcome that change of heart,’ he added.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said her party would not endorse Obamacare ‘sabotage’ but it was willing to throw its weight behind a bipartisan agreement drawn up by Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray to fund the subsidies that Trump is trying to tank.
‘Democrats remain ready to work with Republicans to move quickly to stabilize the insurance marketplaces and lower costs for families,’ Pelosi said. ‘It is long past time for the President to stop the sabotage, and focus on bringing affordable, quality care to the American people.’
Standing next to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, ‘This man is going to get it done, and I think get it done long before anybody else, and I think it’s going to be a great healthcare’
Trump said Friday that the federal subsidies amounted to a ‘pay-off’ for insurance companies, and so he was unilaterally ending them.
‘What it’s going to do is it’s going to be time to negotiate healthcare that’s going to be good for everybody. That money is a subsidy for insurance companies,’ Trump told reporters.
‘Take a look at their stocks. Look where they are. They’re going through the roof, from past – I don’t know about today. But the insurance companies that made a fortune, that money was a subsidy and almost, you could say, a payoff for insurance companies,’ he added.
He said Monday that Republicans are close to a permanent health reform solution that will be ready by March or April of next year.
‘I think we already have the votes. We feel confident we have the votes. We pretty much know what the plan is,’ he said at his press conference.
In front of his Cabinet earlier Trump urged Democrats to join the GOP in voting to fix the federal healthcare system because it’s his belief that ‘the Democrats will be blamed for the mess.’
‘Obamacare is finished. It’s dead. It’s gone,’ Trump said. ‘There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore…It’s a concept that couldn’t have worked. In its best days it couldn’t have worked.’