In the weeks since Donald Trump reignited calls to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act (ACA), he has repeated his public threats at least seven times. Once again, the likely Republican nominee is running on repeal — even as the health care law is more popular and covers more people than ever before. Repealing the ACA means ripping away protections for the over 135 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, hiking premium costs for millions of working families, and putting insurance companies back in charge, allowing them to deny basic care like hospital visits and prescription drugs. As a result, tens of millions would lose coverage.
This is not just Trump’s priority, but the goal of the entire Republican party. Republicans like Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), former Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC), and leading GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy (MT) quickly echoed these calls for repeal following Trump’s initial claim that failing to repeal the ACA was a “low point” for the party. The bottom line is that Republicans are not backing down on their mission to destroy the ACA and throw the entire health care system into chaos.
Read more: The GOP Health Care Plan: It’s Worse Than You Think
- December 25: “Obamacare is too expensive, and otherwise, not good healthcare. I will come up with a much better, and less expensive, alternative! People will be happy, not sad!” [@RealDonaldTrump Truth Social, 12/25/23]
- December 17: “We’re also going to fight to give you much better health care. Obamacare is a catastrophe for American families, and it has been for years. Even Elizabeth Warren, did you ever hear of her? Often referred to as Pocahontas because of her great Indian heritage. Did you ever hear of Pocahontas? She said she was an Indian. She got into schools because she was an Indian. She got into schools. Think of it. She got jobs because she said she was an Indian until Trump came along and revealed the truth. But even Pocahontas says that it has to be fixed. She believes it has to be fixed. We’re going to make it much less expensive for people with much better health care, and we’re going to get that done. We almost got it done, but John McCain voted against it. That was a bad day. Remember that? Thumbs down after campaigning for 10 years, thumbs down everybody. Let’s put your thumb down. Campaigned for 10 years on it. And then he put his thumb down. So somebody will explain that to me someday.” [Donald Trump, Rally, Reno, NV, 12/17/23]
- December 16: “We’re also going to fight to give you much better health care. Obamacare is a catastrophe for all American families.” [Donald Trump, Rally, Durham, NH, 12/16/23]
- December 2: “Obamacare is a disaster and I said we’re going to do something about it.” [Donald Trump, Rally, Cedar Rapids, IA, 12/2/23]
- November 29: “I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT with MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE. Obamacare Sucks!!!” [@RealDonaldTrump Truth Social, 11/29/23]
- November 28: “Getting much better Healthcare than Obamacare for the American people will be a priority of the Trump Administration. It is not a matter of cost, it is a matter of HEALTH. America will have one of the best Healthcare Plans anywhere in the world. Right now it has one of the WORST!” [@RealDonaldTrump Truth Social, 11/28/23]
- November 25: “The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare. I’m seriously looking at alternatives. We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!” [@RealDonaldTrump Truth Social, 11/25/23]