Donald Trump’s health reform plan: Ensure Americans aren’t dying on the streets.
The billionaire Republican presidential contender insisted at the Republican presidential primary debate Saturday night that he does not support liberal health reform ideas, such as the single-payer system frequently espoused by Democratic contender Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Debate moderators had pressed him on the question, asking whether Trump was closer to Sanders than to Hillary Clinton in his health reform ideas, since in the past Trump has expressed support for government health care programs in other countries such as Canada.
Trump insisted he’s not, repeating several times that he wants to repeal Obamacare, but also said he wants to “take care” of people who don’t have healthcare so they don’t “die in the streets.”
“There will be a certain number of people who will be in the street dying, and as a Republican, I don’t want that,” Trump said at the debate sponsored by ABC. “I think everyone on this stage would agree you’re not going to let people die sitting on any street.”
Trump didn’t detail how he would do that. He did, however, criticize health insurance companies, saying they’re “getting rich” on health services under the Affordable Care Act. And he said he would approach health reform by taking out “artificial boundaries” in the industry.
“We are going to replace Obamacare with something so much better,” Trump said.
While Trump recently has attacked opponent Sen. Ted Cruz over Obamacare, contending that Cruz facilitated the healthcare law by supporting the nomination of a Supreme Court justice who upheld it, he stayed away from that attack Saturday night.
Cruz mostly held his fire as well, only hinting that Trump has previously supported socialized medicine, which Cruz argued always ends in disaster.
“Socialized medicine, whether proposed by the Democrats or proposed by the Republicans, would hurt the people of this country,” Cruz said.
