Bill Clinton is on day three of clarifying where he stands on the Affordable Care Act.
“I strongly supported that bill, and it’s given more than 20 million people more insurance, and it’s repealed the most insidious thing that effected all, millions of families: the preexisting condition ability of insurance companies not to insure people,” the former president said Wednesday at a voter registration event in Youngstown, Ohio.
However, Clinton added, it’s wrong to say the healthcare law is perfect. It isn’t, he said, and there are some changes that need to be made.
“There are problems with it. There are problems with it, and everybody knows it,” he said. “The Republicans want to repeal the law. Their idea of solving the problem is to take 20 million people who have got insurance and take it away from them, give it all back to insurance companies again.”
Clinton’s comments Wednesday come after he spent Tuesday clarifying what he said on Monday.
The former president said Monday at a campaign rally in Flint, Mich., that the Affordable Care Act is the “the craziest thing in the world.”
“The people who are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies. Why? Because they’re not organized and they don’t have any bargaining power with insurance companies and they’re getting whacked,” Clinton said.
“So you got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have healthcare, and then the people are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half,” Clinton added. “It’s the craziest thing in the world.”
The simplest solution, Clinton said, would be to figure out an affordable rate and let people use that, and to let people who are “above the line” have access to “affordable entry into the Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
On Tuesday, he reiterated his position on the Affordable Care Act, but he was also sure to stress he is a big fan of the healthcare law.
“I support the Affordable Care Act. I support it today,” he said Tuesday at a rally in Steubenville, Ohio.
On Wednesday, Clinton said the same, and like his earlier clarifications, he also refused to back down from his assertion that the Affordable Care Act has some problems that need to be addressed.
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he concluded Wednesday, is the person to do it.
