President Donald Trump criticized Obamacare as a means to enrich insurance companies during a speech in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Friday night.
Trump's comments came hours after he said he would convene a meeting of health insurance companies to see if they could lower their prices and, as House Republicans did, sent bill in the Senate to cut health care costs.
“The current unaffordable care law, commonly known as Barack Hussein Obamacare, was created to enrich insurance companies. It was bad health care at too high a price, and now you see skyrocketing premiums – that's what the Democrats are demanding,” he said.
Obamacare never did any good. This was done to benefit the insurance companies, which are completely controlled by the Democrats,” he added.
One of several concessions sought by Democrats in closing the partial government shutdown for 43 days starting in October was a COVID-era extension of Obamacare subsidies. The current resolution, signed by Trump on Nov. 13, expires at the end of January, and Trump has noted that Democrats could shut down the government again while trying to push for an extension of the subsidies.
“That's why you can strike on January 30th. You can have another strike because the Democrats are completely in control…they are completely controlled by the insurance companies, the big rich companies,” he said.
“Again, I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own health care and get much better health care at a much lower cost, and the only losers will be the rich insurance companies,” he added.
During the announcement earlier Friday of nine more deals with pharmaceutical companies that radically below Trump said he plans to convene a meeting soon with insurance companies to push for lower prices for consumers.
“I'm going to call a meeting of the insurance companies. I'm going to see if they'll lower their prices, quite frankly,” he said.
Trump said the meeting could take place in Florida while he is at Mar-a-Lago, or it could take place again in Washington, D.C., in his first week back in the White House, noting that large insurance companies received “way more money than they are entitled to.”
