Pres. Trump Receiving Major Backlash Over ‘Repeal And Replace’ Healthcare Lie

With the recent GOP healthcare bill failing to get enough votes, President Donald Trump has taken a huge hit over it, but not because of the healthcare bill not passing but rather due to a pretty big lie he told after it failed. Every single Republican that ran for office, including Trump, spoke about how they planned to repeal and replace Obamacare when they took office. Obviously, with this being everyone’s plan it was not shocking that Donald Trump pushed it in his agenda big time.

This was especially spoken about during the Presidential campaign, as many people felt that the Democrats would not change healthcare if Hillary Clinton won. In fact, most political analysts believe that many of the people who voted for Trump were not major fans of his. Rather, they had high health care premiums or health care penalties growing and they wanted it to end. A Trump presidency seemed like it could help, especially due to his now Republican ties.

To his credit, President Trump put out an executive order almost immediately to repeal Obamacare. This was the first step to loosening some of the major issues, such as the penalties, on everyday Americans. However, a replace plan was not yet ready to put into play. Then shortly after, the GOP seemed to throw a bill together that no one seemed to agree on. Paul Ryan led the GOP bill, with many even initially calling the bill Ryancare over Trumpcare as most called it later on.

The bill simply had too many flaws for American people to support it, as NBC News reported that a mere 17 percent liked the GOP healthcare plan. Meanwhile, at least 30 to 40 Republican House of Representative members were against the bill. This, of course, did not include the Senate. Due to all of this, the GOP pulled the health care bill and President Trump took the hit after he was unable to get enough people to support it.

He even tried to strong-arm it through, with threats to seats in Congress when voting time came up and even saying he would keep Obamacare if this did not go through. He even put the concern on the American people and called the House Freedom Caucus out by name as the faction of Republicans that were one of the key reasons the GOP healthcare bill did not get the votes it needed. However, all of this was not a major hit on President Trump in theory. Everyone knew he did not control the votes in Congress and did try to push things through as much as he could.

The real problem was what he claimed after the GOP bill failed. On Friday, President Trump spoke in the oval office about the healthcare bill failing. What he said seemed to cause a lot of controversy. Trump claimed:

“I guess I’m here, what, 64 days? I never said ‘repeal and replace Obamacare,’ you’ve all heard my speeches. I never said, ‘repeal it and replace it within 64 days.’ I have a long time.”

President Trump is correct when he said he would have a lot of time left to get a healthcare bill together that people can agree on. Yet due to the fact that Trump did say he would repeal and replace Obamacare quickly into his Presidency, people saw what he said to be a lie. Jonathan Lemire of the Associated Press tweeted out, “He repeatedly said he would do it ‘day one’ of his term.” ThinkProgress even posted a list that noted that Trump promised he would repeal Obamacare 68 times, with four times mentioning he would do it immediately. Here are a number of those times he mentioned it according to ThinkProgress.

In February of 2016, Trump told people in New Hampshire:

“From day one I’ve been talking about we’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare…from day one, we’re going to do it.”

Then in September, Trump was quoted saying:

“On my first day in office, I am going to ask congress to send me a bill to immediately repeal and replace…Obamacare.”

If that was not enough, in October Trump claimed during a rally in Sanford, Florida:

“My first day in office, I am going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability.”

Interestingly, while Donald Trump did claim he would keep Obamacare in place if the GOP did not get a healthcare bill ready…most assume he’ll be open to whatever the Republicans come up with next. Most feel that his threat to keep Obamacare was only there because, well, you had to keep it without a replacement plan to take its place. Naturally, if another healthcare proposal came his way then Trump would consider signing it.

Everyone knew how hard it would be to repeal and replace Obamacare going in. Repealing was always the easiest part as President Trump could make that happen immediately, but replacing it was not ultimately his call. Congress had to pass him a law to use before Trump could sign anything into law here. Then to top it all of, Republicans took a lot longer than the next or second day of the Trump administration coming into power to even get a bill ready to vote on.

Obviously, with many knowing the difficulty it was not shocking the GOP did not get their healthcare bill through. The major issue is the lie that President Trump is trying to claim in that he did not say he would repeal and replace Obamacare immediately into his term, when he said he would numerous times. Despite the GOP failure, The Washington Post reports that Trump is suggesting he would be open to working with Democrats on a revised plan. It is unsure if Trump plans to work with them to fix the Obamacare issues or if he will work them on an entirely new plan.

[Featured Image By Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Images]