(USNewsBreak.com) – On March 23, 2010, then-President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), often called ObamaCare, into law. The controversial measure went into full effect on January 1, 2014, and became a point of contention between Democrats and Republicans for years. In 2017, then-POTUS Donald Trump tried to overturn it, but the move failed as there wasn’t enough GOP support. Now, with Trump back on the campaign trail, he’s got the ACA in his sights again.
Trump Resurrects ObamaCare Issue
In a social media post on Truth dated November 25, Trump brought an issue from his presidency to the forefront: the cost of ObamaCare. He highlighted an article from The Wall Street Journal titled: Elizabeth Warren Has an ObamaCare Epiphany, lamenting that the cost of the healthcare program “is out of control.”
Trump says he is “seriously looking at alternatives” and called out Republicans for not following through on the push to eliminate the ACA when he was in office, saying it was a “low point” for the GOP. However, he said he doesn’t plan to give up.
President Joe Biden’s Campaign Fires Back
In response to Trump’s post, Biden’s re-election campaign spokesman, Ammar Moussa, noted that the program provides “40 million people” with insurance, yet “Trump just said he would try to rip it away if he returns to power,” according to NBC News. Moussa said it’s important to take the former president at face value because this isn’t his first time discussing repealing the act.
The Biden campaign said it plans to use this declaration against Trump in order to gather support from voters who are against the move. In 2017, the move failed when six GOP members who campaigned for its repeal didn’t vote that way when it came down to it.
The issue eventually went before the Supreme Court in the form of a case backed by Trump. NBC News polls indicated that voters who considered healthcare a top concern voted for Biden over Trump.
Warren’s “Epiphany”
The epiphany cited in the WSJ’s opinion piece was that Warren has noticed higher patient costs because the health insurers are “dodging ObamaCare’s medical loss ratio (MLR),” which essentially places a cap on profits, not because of the ACA. She, along with Republican Senator Mike Braun (IN), wrote a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General stating that the spending on healthcare is less transparent as insurance providers skirt the MLR by shifting profits to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).
Now, there’s a growing movement in Congress to regulate the PBMs, which could significantly impact healthcare moving forward. As a 2024 Trump versus Biden election faceoff begins to look more likely, voters can expect healthcare to be at the forefront of campaigns.
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