Speaking from the White House this morning to take credit for trying to reduce the price of prescription drugs in the United States via executive order, Donald Trump once again attempted to take credit for the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, by suggesting that he had saved the program in his first administration.
Trump began with a meandering tangent about the weight-loss drug Ozempic.
“Ozempic costs 10 times more in the United States than in the rest of the developed world. Ten times more. Why? Why? What did we do? Suckers.”
Then came his Obamacare lies.
“But we never had a president that had the courage to do this. And nobody knew the system like I do. I mean, I’ve gotten to know this system so well, and I don’t think it’s fair that it benefits Obamacare. Obamacare is a failure. It’s not a good health care.”
“It works. I made it work. I had an obligation to make it work. Or an obligation to let it die. I chose that we had to make it work. I had to make it as good as possible, and I had a choice. I could have let it fail or make it as good as possible. As good as possible means it was still not very good.”
After that was a promise he and his administration will likely come to regret.
“We’re going to maybe come up with something. I think this gives the Republicans a chance to actually do a health care that’s much better than Obamacare for less money.”
Better than Obamacare for less money? Less money on whose part? The government’s? Americans who need health care coverage? What good is a new program if it continues to leave tens of millions of people without health care?
Minutes later, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) went on CNN and laid a much-needed fact-check on the Orange Meance.
“Well, President Trump just said that he’s the one that improved Obamacare, which is actually flat out wrong,” Coons said. “He tried over and over to repeal Obamacare when he was president the first time, and house Republicans are moving ahead this week with their bill, which President Trump is asking for, that would cut millions of Americans off of health care.”
“In the last administration, Democrats worked hard to pass legislation that reduces prescription drug prices and caps the out-of-pocket costs for Americans. So President Biden and Democrats in the Senate made significant progress in capping and reducing drug prices in the last Congress.”
“If this executive order has a positive impact on health care and on health care costs, that would be a good thing.”
Of course, it remains to be seen if the price of prescription drugs can be lowered with a toothless executive order. The courts will have to decide. Congress could act, but probably won’t.
For now, we can comfort ourselves with Trump didn’t get away with his lie going unchallenged. We need more of that.
