President Trump promised Wednesday that a healthcare replacement plan from Republicans would be “far better” than Obamacare if the courts agree with his administration’s position that Obamacare should be thrown out.
“If the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we’ll have a plan that is far better than Obamacare,” he told reporters in the Oval office ahead of a meeting with Fabiana Rosales, the wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.
On Tuesday, Trump declared that Republicans would become the “party of healthcare” and urged senators during their weekly lunch to take another swing at a replacement bill.
Trump did not specifically tell them which bills to embrace, and did not elaborate on Wednesday during the Oval Office remarks. His latest budget request would revive the Graham-Cassidy bill, which turns authority for setting up healthcare systems to states, and members of his administration won’t say what the fallback plan is if the law is struck down.
Past bills Republicans have presented were projected to leave millions more people uninsured than under current law, and lawmakers do not appear to have immediate plans to develop a backup. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who chairs the Finance Committee, said lawmakers would only look at a replacement plan if the administration’s challenge to Obamacare were to be successful.
“We won’t know for months and … it could go well into next year,” Grassley said of the court proceedings. He vowed Republicans would “protect pre-existing conditions.”
“We’re going to be involved in healthcare,” he continued. “Most of it’s going to be very, very bipartisan.”
[Also read: Bernie Sanders doesn’t support House Democrats’ Obamacare expansion bill]
The position outlined by the Trump administration on Monday in favor of having Obamacare struck down puts Republicans on the spot. They have said in recent weeks that they are prepared to move on from trying to replace Obamacare in favor of bipartisan efforts to end surprise medical bills and reduce what patients pay for drugs. If Obamacare is thrown out, it would cause people to lose government-funded Medicaid, subsidies they get to pay for private coverage, and hit numerous other parts of the healthcare system.
Trump, in his remarks to reporters, insisted that Obamacare remained unaffordable for too many people. Under the law, millions of people are left out of receiving subsidies because they make more than the income cutoff of roughly $48,560 a year for an individual and $100,400 for a family of four. Other factors at play in the cost include location, smoking status, and age. The plans cost an average of $612 a month, though there is wide variations in states.
“The premium is too high and deductible is horrible … It’s far too expensive for the people, not only for the country. … Obamacare’s a disaster,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
Democrats in the House are moving ahead on a bill to expand Obamacare that they say will result in more people getting coverage and lower premiums. The bill, however, hasn’t yet received an official score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that would show how much it would cost the federal government and how many more people would become insured. One aspect it addresses is funneling more in subsidies to people so that those making more than the current cutoff would personally pay less in premiums.
[Opinion: Trump knows nothing about healthcare; that makes him the ideal guy to improve it]
Colin Wilhelm contributed.
