Repealing and replacing Obamacare is ‘not a choice – it is a necessity’

Republicans applauded Trump’s exhortation to gut Obamacare, and they found other things to cheer during the five-minute health care portion of his speech. An AP count found that 12.2 million people signed up for this year, despite the Trump administration’s threats to repeal the law.

Trump said at a White House meeting with dozens of governors that he hoped to overhaul the American tax system but that was a “tiny little ant” compared to what he would need to do to remake Obamacare. “It’s a disaster, folks”.

Trump wants increased insurance competition and decreased costs, including premiums.

The former presidential candidate also said it was not incumbent upon his side to work with Republicans on their agenda. What will happen to women’s health care services if Obamacare is repealed? “We are not going back”. Cameras cut to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who smirked as she shook her head.

“Obamacare forced providers to limit the plan options they offered to patients and caused them to drive prices way up”, Trump said. “We are not going to let that happen”.

He went on to criticize Trump for lying about the USA having the highest corporate tax rate in the world, and expressed his dissatisfaction over the president’s pledge to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

For instance, it says, a 60-year-old earning $20,000 gets close to $9,900 in tax credits annually under the Affordable Care Act but would receive only about $4,000 under proposals being discussed.

Many Republicans have suggested that Health Savings Accounts would allow Americans to purchase coverage, and Trump echoed their claims last night. It is unclear how they would be implemented, or what changes he might make to Medicaid expansion, another key component of the Obamacare law. A newly released poll, however, shows that Obamacare recently hit an all-time high in favorability among USA voters. “[This] decline was especially pronounced among lower-income Americans”, says the Los Angeles Times.

In 2016, for example, annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose an average of just 3%, according to an annual survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.

Some Republicans have acknowledged that any move would result in millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage. It was one of those moments where every Republican in the room stood and applauded while Democrats sat stoically.