During and after the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump vowed to make ending the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, his top priority, with a “repeal and replace” plan promised to be ready for submission “essentially simultaneously,” possibly even “the same hour” as Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) was confirmed as health secretary.
Price was confirmed on February 10, and critics are accusing Trump of lying to the American people once again. The president attempted to explain himself during a Monday gathering of state governors at the White House. “We have come up with a solution that’s really, really I think very good,” said Trump, according to CNN. “Now, I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”
Critics ripped into the president, with multiple media outlets airing footage of former president Barack Obama saying some variation of “healthcare is complicated” on numerous occasions.
Appearing on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper” on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who made implementing a single-payer, universal healthcare system a cornerstone of his failed 2016 presidential bid, laughed at Trump’s realization. “Some of us who were sitting on the health education committee, who went to meeting after meeting after meeting, who heard from dozens of people, who stayed up night after night trying to figure out this thing, yeah we got a clue,” Sanders said. “When you provide health care in a nation of 320 million people, yeah, it is very, very complicated.”
Trump offered no specific details about his administration’s plan to replace Obamacare, although the president did tell insurance company CEOs on Monday that he thinks “it’s going to be something special.”
“I think you’re going to like what you hear,” Trump told the executives.
