Republicans finally revealed their health care plan: repeal the Affordable Care Act.
A new video has surfaced of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson saying that Donald Trump, if elected, will kill the Affordable Care Act in the first 100 days, potentially throwing 22 million Americans off their insurance.
“Health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table,” Johnson said during a campaign event in Pennsylvania on Monday, while a life-sized Trump cardboard cutout loomed behind him. The video was first obtained by NBC News.
“No Obamacare,” Johnson continued. “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”
At the campaign stop, Johnson waxed poetic about the virtues of the “free market” and “taking bureaucrats out of the health care equation”—unless, of course, it means restricting women’s reproductive choices. They want their bureaucratic handprints all over that.
However, the ACA remains overwhelmingly popular, with an April survey from KFF finding that 62% of Americans have a favorable view of the law.
The Trump campaign has distanced itself from giving any specific policy on health care, despite that it is a top issue for American voters. In the Sept. 10 presidential debate, Trump said he had only “concepts of a plan” for health care reform. And when asked about his plan for the ACA, which he tried and failed to repeal in his first term, he stumbled through a nonanswer.
“I had a choice to make when I was president, do I save it and make it as good as it can be? Never going to be great. Or do I let it rot? And I felt I had an obligation, even though politically it would have been good to just let it rot and let it go away,” Trump said.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz tried to warn us this is where MAGA Republicans would take us if Trump ever got to be in the White House again.
“When Donald Trump said, ‘I've got a concept of a plan,’ it cracked me up as a fourth grade teacher because my kids would have never given me that,” Walz said during his debate with Trump running mate JD Vance.
“So what they're going to do is let insurance companies pick who they insure,” Walz continued. “Because guess what happens? You pay your premium. It's not much. They figure they're not going to have to pay out to you. But those of you a little older, gray, you know, got cancer? You're going to get kicked out of it. That's why the system didn't work. Kamala Harris will protect and enhance the ACA.”
Johnson’s vow to kill the ACA comes as anti-vaccine Trump ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently said Trump has “promised” him “control of the public health agencies,” going on to list the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and others.
You know, the agencies that regulate the safety of food, conduct health research, and protect the public from the spread of viruses such as, ahem, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republicans continue to unveil themselves in the sneakiest of ways. Well, Americans have the receipts.
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