With Donald Trump promising to reignite his effort to revoke “Obamacare”–the popular 2010 Affordable Care Act that slashed the percentage of people in the US without health insurance–President Joe Biden is planning on holding Trump to that campaign promise during election season, the Washington Post reports.
“Forty million people — more than 1 in 10 Americans — have health insurance today because of the Affordable Care Act and Donald Trump just said he would try to rip it away if he returns to power,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign, said in a statement. “He was one vote away from getting it done when he was president — and we should take him at his word that he’ll try to do it again,” adding, “Donald Trump’s America is one where millions of people lose their health insurance and seniors and families across the country face exorbitant costs just to stay healthy. Those are the stakes next November.”
The continued existence, and popularity, of “Obamacare” has grated on Trump for years. In the 2016 campaign and into his first months in office, Trump promised multiple times to deliver a health care plan “in two weeks” or another timeframe, but never put a serious program out. After Republican Arizona Senator John McCain kiboshed the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017 with a loud thumbs-down, Trump said there was no need to release his plan. He then promised again, in 2020 during his reelection campaign, to produce a health care plan; he never released one.