US President Donald Trump is recruiting the entire population of the US to help create a replacement for Obamacare, according to a tweet in which the president warns the healthcare act is a ticking time bomb.
In the tweet sent Saturday, Trump warned “ObamaCare will explode” but told people not to worry as “we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan.” Trump’s words imply that his own healthcare proposal, which was withdrawn on Friday after it failed to shore up enough votes in support, is no longer in the running.
Trump has supported “exploding” Obamacare, also known as The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, this week, telling the Washington Post “The best thing politically is to let Obamacare explode.”
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Trump distanced himself from increases in medical costs for those under the act, claiming it remains “totally the property of the Democrats” and that “when people get a 200 percent increase next year or a 100 percent or 70 percent, that’s their fault.”
Some people used Trump’s comments to remind him of a tweet he sent in 2013.
That tweet came after Congress passed a Senate deal to avert the fiscal cliff, which saw then-President Barack Obama reach a compromise with Republicans on key promises he made during his election.
The legacy of Obamacare, which Trump promised to repeal during the election, has proved difficult to escape for Republicans. Bernie Sanders, vocal in his opposition to the GOP’s proposed replacement, praised its defeat and described it as “disastrous.”
Republicans were further embarrassed by the defeat when advertisements aired during several basketball games on Friday, thanking them for repealing Obamacare. The ads came just hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan admitted“we're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.”
The ads were paid for by the conservative nonprofit group American Action Network, whose officials also run the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC.