'Everybody' has better health care than US, Trump says
US President Donald Trump has said that every country has better health care than the United States, after the House of Representatives passed legislation to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program, known as Obamacare.
In the most contentious congressional vote of Trump's presidency on Thursday, lawmakers voted 217 to 213 to pass the bill, the American Health Care Act, and to dismantle Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
“Of course the Australians have better health care than we do -- everybody does. Obamacare is dead! But our health care will soon be great,” Trump tweeted on Friday.
This is despite the fact that health care experts from across the political spectrum have said that Trump’s health care bill is unworkable and suffers from fatal flaws and could lead to Americans dropping out of the health care market.
Experts agree that the bill fails to reach the objectives laid forth by Trump, which includes affordable coverage for everyone, lower deductibles and health care costs and better care.
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On Thursday night, Trump raised eyebrows when he highly praised Australia's universal health care system even though that type of system is criticized by conservatives.
Trump told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at an event in New York, “You have better health care than we do.”
Trump said the American Health Care Act passed by the House on Thursday “is a very good bill right now. The premiums are going to come down very substantially. The deductibles are going to come down. It's going to be fantastic health care. Right now Obamacare is failing; we have a failing health care."
But Trump’s own spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Friday the president meant to praise Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, not the country’s health care system.
"[Trump] was simply being complimentary of the prime minister and I don’t think it was much more than that,” she said.
Businessman-turned-politician Trump, within hours of taking the oath of office on January 20, fulfilled one of his most impassioned promises he had made during his presidential campaign and signed an executive order to “ease the burden of Obamacare," which covers some 20 million Americans.
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