President Trump on Sunday stressed that negotiations on a new healthcare bill were still on the march, and that his administration would only pass a bill that would help struggling families.
In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Trump also acknowledged he did have regrets about how the Republicans went about the first attempt at healthcare reform.
“Now the one thing I wouldn’t have done again is put a timeline, that’s why on the second iteration I didn’t put a timeline,” Trump said. “But we have now pre-existing conditions in the bill, we have — we have set up a pool for the pre-existing conditions so that the premiums can be allowed to fall. We are taking across all of the borders or the lines so that insurance companies can compete.”
Trump also outlined that the newest version, or “phase two” of the bill, was centered on a single theme and will be approved “quickly.”
“There will be such competition by insurance companies so that they can get healthcare, and the people taken care of,” Trump began. “The other thing we’re going to have is groups, groups of people [who] can negotiate. What is going to happen is the competition is going to drive down the premiums, in my opinion much, much more than people understand.”
The president said he told Republican leaders to ignore the “100 days” mark as a timeline for getting a new healthcare bill passed.
Trump reiterated that the replacement bill would have some kind of guarantee providing coverage for those people with pre-existing conditions, although he said, in some cases that mechanism may be at the state level.
Also on the front of domestic issues, the president touched lightly on his tax plan, released earlier this week. When asked how the plan will work to counter projected deficits, Trump said those deficits will be countered by “not only growth, it will be made up by better trade deals.”
However, Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged on Sunday that “short term” deficit growth was possible under the president’s tax plan. When asked about deficit spending from the tax plan, Pence said on NBC, “Maybe in the short term. But the truth is, if we don’t get this economy growing at three percent, or more, as the president believes that we can, we’re never going to meet the obligations that we’ve made today.”
