Video of former President Donald Trump vowing to terminate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went viral on social media on Friday after he reversed his position on the issue last month.
Trump, the presumed 2024 GOP presidential nominee, is set to face off against President Joe Biden later this year in a likely rematch of the 2020 election, as each candidate has won enough delegates to secure their party's presidential nomination.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to repeal the ACA, which was developed under former President Barack Obama and is more commonly known as "Obamacare," since launching his political career with a successful 2016 presidential bid. He attempted to kill the program shortly after taking office, but was blocked by Republicans who resisted the move in the Senate.
However, in a late March Truth Social post, Trump seemingly reversed his position by endorsing the ACA, while promising to keep the program in place, but make it "much, much, much better" during a potential second term.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally on April 2 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Video of Trump vowing to terminate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went viral across social media on Friday after he... Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally on April 2 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Video of Trump vowing to terminate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went viral across social media on Friday after he reversed his position on the issue last month. More Scott Olson/Getty Images
"I'm not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN [sic] DISINFORMATES [sic] AND MISINFORMATES [sic] ALL THE TIME, I'm running to CLOSE THE BORDER, STOP INFLATION, MAKE OUR ECONOMY GREAT, STRENGTHEN OUR MILITARY, AND MAKE THE ACA, or OBAMACARE, AS IT IS KNOWN, MUCH BETTER, STRONGER, AND FAR LESS EXPENSIVE," Trump wrote.
He added: "IN OTHER WORDS, MAKE THE ACA MUCH, MUCH, MUCH BETTER FOR FAR LESS MONEY (OR COST) TO OUR GREST [sic] AMERICAN CITIZENS, WHO HAVE BEEN DECIMATED BY BIDEN, HIS RECORD INFLATION, BAD ECONOMY, AFGHANISTAN CATASTROPHE, AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE."
In a Friday post on X, formerly Twitter, Biden-Harris HQ shared a video in which MSNBC put together the former president's remarks about "terminating" Obamacare since 2016, with the most recent comment being made in December 2023.
"MSNBC plays montage of Donald Trump promising to terminate the Affordable Care Act," Biden's reelection campaign wrote on X. As of Saturday afternoon, the video has garnered over 225,000 views.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump and Biden's campaign via email for comment.
MSNBC plays montage of Donald Trump promising to terminate the Affordable Care Act pic.twitter.com/qDAMEHvUSJ — Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) April 13, 2024
Biden responded to Trump's efforts and comments to strike down the ACA in a post on X last month. The president also claimed that Trump was hoping to make cuts to Social Security and Medicare, although the Trump campaign has previously denied this.
"Donald Trump was just one vote away from repealing the Affordable Care Act," the president posted. "Now, he's determined to try again, running to 'terminate' it—and cut Medicare and Social Security while he's at it. I won't let it happen."
According to the Biden administration, 45 million people now have coverage through the Obamacare exchanges or Medicaid expansion.
Trump's comments on Obamacare come after several efforts by Trump and other Republicans to repeal the ACA using the courts have also been unsuccessful, with the conservative-led U.S. Supreme Court having rejected multiple attempts.
Only months ago, Trump called Obamacare "not good healthcare" and vowed to replace it with his own yet-to-be-revealed program, while also recently denouncing Republican senators who "raised their hands not to terminate it" as "a low point for the Republican Party."
dallasdude on April 16th, 2024 at 19:24 UTC »
Too many people have forgotten what things used to be like.
If you EVER had a single gap in your health insurance coverage it meant you lost health insurance for the rest of your life
Which meant if you got laid off and couldn’t find a new job immediately or afford COBRA extension you lost health insurance for the rest of your life.
And also if you ever went over $1,000,000 in total combined lifetime medical care costs, your coverage was over— forever. “Lifetime policy limits”
If you got really sick or had a costly problem the health insurors would hire teams of investigators to dig into every medical record in your life. Any discrepancy or omission meant they retroactively cancelled your insurance, mail you a refund for your premium and deny your claim. They were called “policy rescissions”
You couldn’t stay on your parents health plan past like 21 years old, and if you failed to buy coverage right away then you lost insurance coverage for any existing chronic condition forever.
Obamacare got rid of all of that stuff
Republicans have never come up with a “replacement” plan because their plan is and has always been to go back to the way things used to be.
BlueMysteryWolf on April 16th, 2024 at 17:47 UTC »
Well yeah. They've tried to eliminate the affordable care act for a very long time. I remember it was a huge deal when republicans had control of everything when Trump was in charge the first few years of his presidency.
The issue?
They were going "We're going to remove this disaster of Obamacare and we're going to replace it with something. We don't know WHAT we're going to replace it with yet, but we will." they couldn't get it to pass despite controlling everything, and they went on so many vacations that they eventually just moved on to something else.
Romano16 on April 16th, 2024 at 17:43 UTC »
It’s been over a decade since Republicans have said they’d terminate ObamaCare with no replacement.
Perhaps it’s their new rage bait since they actually succeeded in getting Roe v. Wade overturned.