President Trump: (35:29)
Good. So we got rid of the individual mandate on Obamacare, which was the worst part of Obamacare, and now you could actually say it’s not Obamacare because that’s how big it was, where you had to pay a fortune for the privilege of not having to pay for bad health insurance, so we got rid of that. That was a big, big thing. And by doing that, and we will always have… By the way, we’re always protecting people with pre-existing conditions, and I can’t say that more strongly, but we’ve been able to bring healthcare costs way down. Now, I took over Obamacare, got rid of the individual mandate, made it good, managed it much better. Remember, they had the $5 billion website disaster, and all of the problems they had. The problem with Obamacare, it’s not good. We’d like to terminate it, and we want a much less expensive healthcare that’s a much better healthcare, and that’s where we’re aiming. And if we can do that, and we have a very good chance of doing it, but we’ve also brought down the price of Obamacare. The problem with Obamacare, it basically is never going to be great, and I want to give great healthcare. So important. And thank you very much.
Savannah: (36:37)
Mr. President, I got a follow-up pre-existing conditions. This is such a big issue for voters.
President Trump: (36:39)
It is a big issue for me too.
Savannah: (36:41)
In point of fact, your administration is about to go to the Supreme Court to argue to throw out the rest of Obamacare, which includes the protections for preexisting conditions.
President Trump: (36:50)
That’s right. That’s right.
Savannah: (36:50)
So your administration is in court right now, trying to get rid of that protection.
President Trump: (36:54)
In order to replace it with a much better healthcare at a much lower price. And always, under all circumstances, we are going to protect the Republicans. And maybe I changed the party a lot over the last three years, but we will protect people with preexisting conditions. And Savannah, what I want to do, get rid of the terrible Obamacare. I’ve already done it to a large extent because as you know, the individual mandate is gone. That was the worst part.
Savannah: (37:22)
You repealed, but you haven’t replaced.
President Trump: (37:23)
No, no.
Savannah: (37:23)
Now, you’ve been in office almost four years.
President Trump: (37:26)
We have done-
Savannah: (37:27)
You have both houses of Congress, Senate and House, in Republican hands, and there is not a replacement yet.
President Trump: (37:33)
That’s right. I’m sorry, but if you look, we had both houses and what did we do? We got rid of the individual mandate. That went through the legislature.
Savannah: (37:39)
But the promise was repeal and replace.
President Trump: (37:40)
Look, look. We should be on the same side. I wanted very simple. I’m going to put it very simple. We would like to terminate it, and we would like to replace it with something that’s much less expensive and much better. We will always protect people with preexisting conditions.
Savannah: (37:59)
But if you’re successful in court-
President Trump: (37:59)
And here’s the thing-
Savannah: (37:59)
… in November, those preexisting conditions, that promise will be gone.
President Trump: (38:00)
If we don’t succeed, we are running the remnants of whatever’s left because we took it apart. We are running the remnants of whatever’s left much better than the previous administration, which ran it very badly, but we’d like to have new healthcare much better and much less expensive.
USA
