Trump declares Obamacare 'dead,' urges Democratic help for short-term fix

[webfact]

Trump declares Obamacare 'dead,' urges Democratic help for short-term fix

By Roberta Rampton and Richard Cowan

 

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at his side in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 16, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday declared Obamacare "dead" and "gone," but urged Republicans and Democrats in Congress to craft a short-term fix of healthcare markets under the 7-year-old law that critics say he has effectively sabotaged.

 

"It’s dead. It’s gone. It’s no longer - you shouldn’t even mention. It’s gone," Trump said of former Democratic President Barack Obama's signature 2010 healthcare law that Republicans have repeatedly tried and failed to repeal.

 

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said: "I think we’ll have a short-term fix with Republicans and Democrats getting together."

 

Trump also said he would work to lower prescription drug prices, which he said were "out of control." He did not provide details.

 

Last week, the Republican president said he would stop Obamacare's federal subsidy payments to insurers, which are designed to help lower-income people afford health insurance.

 

Trump said that in stopping the subsidies, he was cutting off the "gravy train" for insurers.

 

But Democrats and some Republicans said Trump's move to cancel the payments would hurt poor and middle-class people and cause premiums to soar.

 

Democratic attorneys general from 18 states as well as Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit in federal court in California on Friday to preserve the payments.

 

Trump vowed during his 2016 presidential campaign to kill Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, but his fellow Republicans in Congress have been unable to pass legislation to replace it with a more limited healthcare programme.

 

Republicans call Obamacare intrusive and ineffective. Democrats defend the law, saying it extended health insurance to millions of Americans.

 

CROWDED AGENDA

 

Trump said his goal was to make healthcare more affordable and "that's what we are doing" by encouraging a bipartisan short-term fix followed by a Republican-only long-term programme to be enacted during the first part of next year.

 

It was not yet clear whether the Republican-controlled Congress would agree to help shore up Obamacare and reinstate the subsidies.

 

Congress is already grappling with a crowded agenda that includes tax reform and paying for relief efforts for California's wildfires and hurricanes that hit Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico.

 

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he was hopeful that a deal was near to stabilise Obamacare.

 

"If he's (Trump) now supportive of an agreement that stabilizes and improves the existing system under the Affordable Care Act, we certainly welcome that change of heart," Schumer said in a statement.

 

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander and Democratic Senator Patty Murray have been trying to craft a bipartisan deal aimed at helping stabilise health insurance markets under Obamacare.

 

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Alexander said: "I hope we can get a result," but added that any deal he crafted with Murray would have to win the support of rank-and-file senators.

 

He said he and Murray were trying to strike a deal that "extends cost-sharing payments for two years and gives states meaningful flexibility" in administering Obamacare.

 

(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-10-17

[darksidedog]

The only thing that is dead is Donalds brain. Making it harder and more expensive for people to get healthcare while telling people he is improving things can only come from a brain dead moron.

[whatsupdoc]

If Obamacare is dead the remnants of it should be called Trumpcare. At least that would clarify the responsibility for it.

[dunroaming]

Getting rid of this moron is very overdue.  Come on America, how can you let this fool continue to destroy your country and your credibility? 

[champers]

While he's busy shafting Americans, he can't be starting WW3.

[dunroaming]

22 minutes ago, champers said:

While he's busy shafting Americans, he can't be starting WW3.

And that is some comfort? 

[kamahele]

27 minutes ago, champers said:

While he's busy shafting Americans, he can't be starting WW3.

Unfortunately, he is a multi tasker.....

[ilostmypassword]

It's like saying "Now that i've  burned down your house, you should help me put up some tents."

[mike324]

Trumps party can't get anything done even when they have majority. Now he is putting blame on congress if they don't have a solution to Obamacare. Trump always made fun of Obama that he has to sign so many executive orders, yet Trump has signed more executive orders than Obama in the same time frame that both presidents has been in office. Its like beating a dead horse with all Trump threads now.

 

Would like to hear Trumps supporter comment on this issue, whats better than Obamacare? Trumps party had so many years to come up with an alternative, yet what were they doing the whole time?

[Jingthing]

If the ACA does fully die and it's not replaced with something better (which means at least meaningful movement towards actual access to quality health care for all at lower costs), which so far the republicans haven't even come close to even proposing, then the BLAME for the death of ACA along with the real life deaths of countless actual American PEOPLE is fully on the corrupt evil con man potus itself. 

In other words, if ACA dies, it will be because it was intentionally MURDERED. 

ACA is better than the status quo it replaced but as Obama said, it was only a starter home.

The way to move forward is not to burn down the starter home.

Shame on trump and all that support him!

Edited October 17, 2017 by Jingthing

[craigt3365]

7 hours ago, darksidedog said:

The only thing that is dead is Donalds brain. Making it harder and more expensive for people to get healthcare while telling people he is improving things can only come from a brain dead moron.

Right on.  And his EO is far from being finalized.  Lots of legal hurdles to go.  A bit premature for Trump to be saying this.

[BuaBS]

Good riddance . A lot of people voted Trump to get rid ofobamacare.

At least trump held this promise.

Now the wall T !

[Jingthing]

5 minutes ago, BuaBS said:

Good riddance . A lot of people voted Trump to get rid ofobamacare.

At least trump held this promise.

Now the wall T !

You're tripping. He actually promised his suckers better healthcare for all. Anyone with a brain knew he was lying. There were even some suckers on here that thought he was going to push universal healthcare. The only good news about this, and it's a shame so many innocent people are going to have to die because of it, is that this big mess will eventually create a backlash in the other direction, and move the USA closer to universal. But that might take 50 years. 

The inconvenient truth for Ayn Randian fanatic right wingers, is that the vast majority of Americans now believe health care is a civil right due to all citizens. Even trump got that by pushing his lies to his suckers. So it's not even close to true that the people voted for what the clown potus is actually doing. 

Edited October 17, 2017 by Jingthing

[ilostmypassword]

2 hours ago, BuaBS said:

Good riddance . A lot of people voted Trump to get rid ofobamacare.

At least trump held this promise.

Now the wall T !

Actually a lot of people who voted for Trump didn't believe it that he would try to get rid of Obamacare.  You should read some interviews with the people in Kentucky, W. Virginia etc who depend on Obamacare but voted for Trump despite his threats, not because of them.

[Johpa]

Great, so he attempts to destroy the Republican healthcare system that Obama backed as a compromise to the healthcare insurance sector to prevent discussion of a national "single-payer" plan.  As the ACA was the Republican alternative to single-payer they, the Republicans, of course have no alternative plan.  The only rational alternative is single-payer. But the Republican party is too deeply embedded within and beholden to the health insurance industry so the alternative Trump plan is to offer more Mickey Mouse plans to the Trump hillbillies that won't really cover major hospital or major illness expenses. So those costs will inevitably be covered by the tax payers just like the costs of the fourth, fifth, and sixth kids of those ridiculous full quiver hypocritical evangelical families who support El Douche Bag Trump. And apart from Mickey Mouse insurance plans, Trump care also raises the rates on independents like myself to the point of being unaffordable, and I already pay around $1,400 a month for me and the wife with a high deductible and no dentistry.  And all this not because of some ideological concern about a plan, the ACA, that forces everyone to obtain insurance from the private sector, the Republican agenda, but because Obama was a Black man and these racist a-holes are hellbent on erasing what they perceive as the stain upon their white world where any and all actions by Obama must be nullified, even if that means destroying their own health plan, the ACA.

[JAG]

7 hours ago, champers said:

While he's busy shafting Americans, he can't be starting WW3.

 

6 hours ago, kamahele said:

Unfortunately, he is a multi tasker.....

Well, yes, he certainly looks as if he is capable of cocking up several things simultaneously!

[ilostmypassword]

9 minutes ago, Johpa said:

Great, so he attempts to destroy the Republican healthcare system that Obama backed as a compromise to the healthcare insurance sector to prevent discussion of a national "single-payer" plan.  As the ACA was the Republican alternative to single-payer they, the Republicans, of course have no alternative plan.  The only rational alternative is single-payer. But the Republican party is too deeply embedded within and beholden to the health insurance industry so the alternative Trump plan is to offer more Mickey Mouse plans to the Trump hillbillies that won't really cover major hospital or major illness expenses. So those costs will inevitably be covered by the tax payers just like the costs of the fourth, fifth, and sixth kids of those ridiculous full quiver hypocritical evangelical families who support El Douche Bag Trump. And apart from Mickey Mouse insurance plans, Trump care also raises the rates on independents like myself to the point of being unaffordable, and I already pay around $1,400 a month for me and the wife with a high deductible and no dentistry.  And all this not because of some ideological concern about a plan, the ACA, that forces everyone to obtain insurance from the private sector, the Republican agenda, but because Obama was a Black man and these racist a-holes are hellbent on erasing what they perceive as the stain upon their white world where any and all actions by Obama must be nullified, even if that means destroying their own health plan, the ACA.

Since about half of all Americans get their health care coverage via their employers and polls show that most are satisfied with their coverage, it's politically impossible to get a single payer system installed in the USA. The goal should be universal coverage. Plenty of industrialized nations achieve this via private insurance. 

[Jingthing]

10 minutes ago, JAG said:

 

Well, yes, he certainly looks as if he is capable of cocking up several things simultaneously!

It feels like a hostile enemy power has occupied the white house and most of congress as well. This is the biggest political crisis in the USA since the civil war. There are no guarantees there will be a recognizable democracy left at the end of it. 

[selftaopath]

20 hours ago, darksidedog said:

The only thing that is dead is Donalds brain. Making it harder and more expensive for people to get healthcare while telling people he is improving things can only come from a brain dead moron.

Hopefully this "brain dead" poor excuse of a human will be "unplugged" soon. But not sure how b/c his regime consists of spineless lackeys.

 

[selftaopath]

20 hours ago, whatsupdoc said:

If Obamacare is dead the remnants of it should be called Trumpcare. At least that would clarify the responsibility for it.

Or call it "TrumpDoesn'tCare."

[ilostmypassword]

Trump has just demonstrated the extent of his desire for health reform by appointing a drug company executive to replace Tom Price to lead Health & Human Services Dept. The swamp is rising.

[Jingthing]

The more the orange health care Grinch tries to kill Obamacare, the more people appreciate it! Signups are spiking even though the orange ogre cut the signup period in half and massively cut spending on advertising and helpers.