President Trump is committed to passage of the Republican proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare despite the turbulence the bill faces in Congress and his occasional threats to drop health care reform.
In a Wednesday interview with “Examining Politics,” the Washington Examiner’s weekly podcast, Helen Ferre, the White House director of media affairs, said that Trump believes health care is a crisis for many Americans, and he’s intent on doing something about it.
Ferre said that Trump supports the American Health Care Act, the GOP bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and is working with critics of the legislation to make improvements and round up the votes it needs to clear the House and Senate.
“He supports the bill 100 percent,” Ferre said. “Now, having said that, the president, as you know, is a great negotiator, and it’s what he’s really good at.”
Trump has from time to time suggested that if Republicans can’t resolve their differences and pass a health care bill, he’ll let the issue slide and wait for Obamacare to collapse on its own before revisiting the issue.
Indeed, some of Trump’s core supporters are encouraging him to do that now, arguing that the AHCA is fatally flawed and that the president shouldn’t anchor himself to a sinking ship.
But Ferre said that delaying health care reform is not an option and not being considered by Trump.
“The president is 100 percent committed to working with the legislature — with the [House] and Senate — to get meaningful reform done,” Ferre said. “The president’s fully committed to seeing this through.”
