Donald Trump said that as soon as his secretary for Health and Human Services is in office, his administration will have a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare “essentially simultaneously.”
But Trump offered few details about what exactly that plan would entail. Obamacare
Trump’s vague comments come as Republicans on Capitol Hill are embroiled in an internal disagreement about the timing of repealing and replacing Obamacare and how the plan will be implemented.
Trump said only that the plan will ” be repeal and replace. It will be essentially simultaneously.”
Trump argued that repeal and replace could happen within days or even hours.
Trump argued that it’s actually a favor for Democrats that Republicans are taking down Obamacare because he said it was collapsing.
“We are doing them a tremendous service by doing it…We are doing the Democrats a great service,” Trump said.
Trump said that it would have been easier for Republicans just wait for Americans to see what happened to the Obamacare exchange in 2017.
“We don’t want to own it. We don’t want to own it politically. They own it right now. So the easiest thing would be to let it implode in ’17 and believe me, we’d get pretty much whatever we wanted, but it would take a long time,” Trump said. “Seventeen is going to be the bad year. It’s going to be catastrophic. Frankly, we could sit back, and it was the thought from a political standpoint but it wouldn’t be fair to the people.”
Trump’s lack of specificity comes after some members hoped that their President-elect might help them sort out their own internal differences over the best path forward.
Instead, Trump offered a plan with no more details than a standard stump speech.
“As soon as our secretary is approved and gets into the office, we’ll be filing a plan and it was actually pretty accurately reported today, the New York Times, and the plan will be repeal and replace Obamacare,” Trump said. “We’re going to have a health care that is far less expensive and far better. Okay.”