President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized the House-passed health care bill, calling it “mean” in a meeting with Republican senators and urging them to develop a “more generous” version. But just over a month ago, the president repeatedly praised the GOP-sponsored legislation, describing it as a “great plan” after a vote confirmed the bill’s approval in the House.
Here are all the ways Trump lauded the American Health Care Act in his speech from the White House Rose Garden on May 4th:
Trump said the bill would make insurance prices go down
“And I will say this, that as far as I’m concerned, your premiums, they’re going to start to come down,” Trump said during the beginning of his remarks, before later adding: “And I think, most importantly, yes, premiums will be coming down. Yes, deductibles will be coming down. But very importantly, it’s a great plan. And ultimately, that’s what it’s all about.”
A forecast from the Congressional Budget Office, an independent, nonpartisan agency, said that premiums will actually increase over the next few years should the bill pass in its current form, and long-term effects will ultimately fall to individual states.
He said it was good because it would repeal and replace Obamacare
“Right now, the insurance companies are fleeing. It’s been a catastrophe. And this is a great plan,” Trump said. “I actually think it will get even better. And this is, make no mistake, this is a repeal and replace of Obamacare. Make no mistake about it. Make no mistake.”
He said it was great because it was done quickly
“And this really helps it. A lot of people said, how come you kept pushing healthcare, knowing how tough it is? Don’t forget, Obamacare took 17 months. Hillary Clinton tried so hard — really valiantly, in all fairness, to get healthcare through. Didn’t happen,” Trump remarked. “We’ve really been doing this for eight weeks, if you think about it. And this is a real plan. This is a great plan. And we had no support from the other party.”
He said it had “great features”
“But we want to brag about the plan, because this plan really — uh oh,” Trump began before he was cut off by a laughing audience. “Well, we may. But we’re just going to talk a little bit about the plan, how good it is, some of the great features.”
The CBO in the same aforementioned report said that if the bill goes through in its current condition, 23 million Americans will lose insurance over the next 10 years.
And overall, he said it was good because of the “talent” that helped develop it
“So what we have is something very, very incredibly well-crafted. Tell you what, there is a lot of talent standing behind me. An unbelievable amount of talent, that I can tell you. I mean it,” Trump gushed.
“But we have an amazing group of people standing behind me,” the president added. “They worked so hard and they worked so long. And when I said, let’s do this, let’s go out, just short little shots for each one of us and let’s say how good this plan is — we don’t have to talk about this unbelievable — wasn’t it unbelievable? So we don’t have to say it again. But it’s going to be an unbelievable victory, actually, when we get it through the Senate.”
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