The ailing bureaucratic creation known as Obamacare will get a transfusion of common sense if former President Donald Trump is elected, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday.
Johnson said curing the patient is not the same as killing it, rejecting allegations by Democrats that the GOP’s goal was to end the Affordable Care Act outright.
“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 Monday in a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania, according to NBC.
“No Obamacare?” he was asked.
“No Obamacare,” Johnson said, noting that Republicans are not seeking to go back into pre-Obamacare days.
“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,” he said.
Johnson said the critical issue to a better system is to “take government bureaucrats out of the health care equation and you have doctor-patient relationships, it’s better for everybody. More efficient, more effective.”
“That’s the free market. Trump’s going to be for the free market.”
“We want to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state,” Johnson continued.
Should Trump end Obamacare in a second term?
“These agencies have been weaponized against the people. It’s crushing the free market; it’s like a boot on the neck of job creators and entrepreneurs and risk takers. And so health care is one of the sectors, and we need this across the board,” Johnson said.
“Trump’s going to go big. I mean, he’s only going to have one more term. Can’t run for re-election. And so he’s going to be thinking about legacy, and we’re going to fix these things,” he said.
Johnson said that Democratic claims that reforming Obamacare meant ending it are campaign scare tactics.
“Despite the dishonest characterizations from the Harris campaign, the audio and transcript make clear that I offered no such promise to end ObamaCare, and in fact acknowledged that the policy is ‘deeply ingrained’ in our health care system,” Johnson said, referring to the Monday event, according to Fox News
“Still, House Republicans will always seek to reduce the costs and improve the quality and availability of health care for all Americans. Anyone who has been a patient or known a loved one who has struggled with health issues understands why this is so important.”
A representative of Johnson said that Vice President Kamala Harris’s “desperation now has her lying about Speaker Johnson.”
Although Trump has long been critical of Obamacare, national press secretary Karoline Leavitt, said he has no plans to end it, according to CNN.
“Repealing Obamacare is not President Trump’s policy position,” she said.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio said that the Trump administration might “implement some deregulatory agenda so that people can choose a health care plan that fits them.”
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