The following is a rush transcript of President Trump’s comments a few moments ago on Obamacare. There may be small textual errors. But it will give you a broad sense of what he said. It’s important to read.
Health care is moving along. That was a subsidy to the insurance companies and a gift that was what they gave the insurance companies. Take a look at where their stock was when Obamacare was originally approved and what it is today. You will see numbers that if you invested in the stocks, you would be extremely happy. They have given them a total gift. They have given them — you can almost call it a pay off. It’s a disgrace. That money goes to the insurance companies. We want to take care of poof people and people that need help with health care.
I’m never going to get campaign contributions from the insurance companies, but take a look at how much money has been spent by the Democrats and by the health companies on politicians generally, but take a look at the coffers of the Democrats.
The CSR payments have actually brought Republicans and Democrats together. We got calls, emergency calls from the Democrats and I think probably the Republicans were also calling them saying let’s come up with at least a short-term fix of health care in this country. And the gravy train ended the day I knocked the insurance companies’ money. Which was last week. Hundred of millions of dollars handed to the insurance companies for very little reason. Believe me. I want the money to go to the people, to poor people that need it. Not to insurance companies which is where it’s going, as of last week I ended that. We have a lot of interesting things to do. I’m meeting with Mitch McConnell for lunch and we will say a few words after that.
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We need health care. We’re going to get the health care done. In my opinion what’s happening is as we meet Republicans are meeting with Democrats because of what I did with the CSR. I cutoff the gravy train. If I didn’t cut the CSRs, they wouldn’t be meeting. They would be having lunch and enjoying themselves. They are right now having emergency meetings to get a short-term fix of health care. Where premiums don’t have to double and triple every year like they’ve been doing under Obamacare. Because Obamacare is finished. It’s dead. It’s gone. You shouldn’t even mention it. It’s gone. There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore. I said this years ago. It’s a concept that couldn’t have worked. In its best days it couldn’t have worked.
We are working on a short-term fix prior to the Republicans getting together maybe with Democrats. It’s obstruction, but maybe with Democrats to fix health care permanently. So I think we will have a short-term fix with Republicans and Democrats getting together and after that have a successful vote. Because as you know, we were one vote short and I think we have the votes right now, whether it’s through block-granting the money back to the states. It’s a smaller form of government that can be more individually sensitive. That will happen fairly shortly.
As soon as we have the next reconciliation we will get the vote for health care. I feel very confident of that. I think we have the vote for health care. Sadly the Democrats can’t join us on that which will be the long-term fix, but I do believe we will have a short-term fix because I think the Democrats will be blamed for the mess. This is an Obamacare mess. When the premiums go up, that has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that we had poor care delivered poorly, written poorly, approved by the Democrats.
It was called Obamacare, but I think we will have a short-term fix and a long-term fix and that will take place probably in March or April. We will have a very solid vote. It will be probably 100% Republican. No Democrats. Most people know that will be a very good form of health insurance. That will be it. Any other questions? No? Thank you. See you in a little while. I know how he feels. Depends on who you are talking about. There are Republicans frankly that should be ashamed of themselves, but most of them, I will tell you what. I know the Republican senators and most of them are really, really great people that want to work hard and want to do a great thing for the American public. A few people disappointed us. Really, really disappointed us. I can understand how Steve Bannon feels. Thank you very much.
