Trump ‘Seriously Looking at Alternatives’ to Obamacare

Then-President Donald Trump and former president Barack Obama exchange words at the Capitol in Washington, DC on Jan. 20, 2017.Rob Carr/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump announced that he is looking at making changes Obamacare and said that Republicans should have rescinded the health care law.

In a post on Truth Social over the weekend, the former president said he is “seriously looking at alternatives” to the 2010 Affordable Care Act if he is elected next year. He attempted to repeal the law in 2017 as president but was blocked by the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

“We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it,” he wrote, referring to McCain. “It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!”

The reason why he wants a change, President Trump said, is because the “cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare.”

He was responding to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Elizabeth Warren Has an ObamaCare Epiphany,” responding to a letter Sen. Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) sent to the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Even worse,” the senators wrote in a recent letter, “insurers can use their PBMs to steer patients to their own pharmacies, while disadvantaging competing pharmacies with lower reimbursements and predatory fees,” WSJ reported. They are referring to Pharmacy Benefit Managers.

“Just a year after the MLR requirement was put in place, UnitedHealth Group formed Optum, which now includes a PBM and a specialty pharmacy, as well as over 70,000 physicians,” the senators wrote. “Today, UnitedHealth Group sends 25 percent of its medical claim revenue to its Optum subsidiaries—in other words, to itself,” they added.

After President Trump took office in early 2017, he endorsed the passage of a Republican-backed tax overhaul bill that reduced the “individual mandate” penalty for not having insurance to $0. After it passed both chambers at the time, President Trump signed it into law in December of that year and later said it “[liberated]  millions of low-income Americans from a tax that penalized them for not purchasing health-insurance coverage they did not want or could not afford.”

“We eliminated Obamacare’s horrible, horrible, very expensive and very unfair, unpopular individual mandate. A total disaster,” President Trump said in 2019. “That was a big penalty. That was a big thing. Where you paid a lot of money for the privilege ... of having no healthcare.”

The former president, who has been long critical of Obamacare, has faced some GOP criticism for not being able to repeal Obamacare. Earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, made a rare criticism of President Trump for not replacing or repealing the law.

“I am never somebody who will make a false promise,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in September. “My friend Donald Trump promised us: repeal and replace Obamacare. Eight years later, did it happen? No, it did not. It is a false promise if it is contingent on Congress.”

Mr. Ramaswamy offered the Obamacare criticism when asked about his tax policy during an Ohio event. He said many presidents make mistakes by focusing on legislative matters first. Weeks before that, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, also a Republican presidential candidate, criticized President Trump for not repealing the law.

However, the former Republican governor of Kansas, Jeff Coyler, wrote last week in an opinion article that voters should choose President Trump in 2024 because he can “fix health care in America.”

“Trump would be transformative in protecting Medicare for seniors and others who rely on It. Some want to cut Medicare benefits, which is wrong,” he wrote, possibly referring to some Republicans’ proposals to reduce both Medicare and Social Security programs.

He added, “Trump would also lower health care prices. Ask any small business up to any large corporation: None of Obamacare’s promises were kept. Deductibles and copays have risen far beyond inflation and the continuity of care has suffered.”

(L-R) Former President Donald Trump joins South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on the field during halftime in the Palmetto Bowl between Clemson and South Carolina at Williams Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina, on Nov. 25, 2023. Sean Rayford/Getty Images

According to a release issued by the Biden administration earlier this year, more than “40 million people are currently enrolled in Marketplace or Medicaid expansion coverage” related to Obamacare, a figure described as the “highest total on record.” Biden officials have said that health care prices have gone down, but 2024 rates “may rise moderately,” according to a KFF report.

“The median proposed rate increase is 6 percent nationally, with most proposed increases falling between 2 percent and 10 percent,” it said. “Most enrollees in this market are subsidized and do not pay the full premium. However, premium increases can affect federal spending and the driving factors behind these increases illustrate broader trends driving health costs in 2024.”