Trump White House Refuses To Promise People Won’t Lose Heath Care After Obamacare Repeal

Trump’s Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to keep the President’s promise that people won’t lose their health care with the Republican Obamacare replacement during an interview on ABC’s This Week.

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Trump Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked numerous times by ABC’s This Week’s George Stephanopoulos repeatedly asked if the White House would keep Trump’s promise that everybody would have health care after Obamacare is repealed.

Transcript via ABC’s This Week:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say replace it with something better. So does that mean that no one who has coverage now will lose it?

SANDERS: I know that the goal is that we make sure that people don’t lose their coverage and that we have to put a high priority on people that need it most. We have to lower costs and we have to make sure that the people that need insurance the very most are covered. But at the same time, George, we cannot survive under the current system. We have to make a massive overall to the health care system in America, because it is simply just not sustainable, and everybody agrees with that. There is nobody that argues that we’re on a track that we can maintain. So, we’re looking at every possible way to do exactly that: repeal a terrible , failed system and replace with something better.

STEPHANOPOULOS; Again, so I’ll have to ask one more time. You keep say replace it with something better. So will the president guarantee that he won’t sign a plan that will cause people that have coverage now to lose it?

SANDERS: Look, I’m not going to speak specifically for the president on that topic, but what I can say is he’s made it a high priority and a number one focus that we make sure that people that have insurance continue their insurance, particularly those in the highest need.

The White House’s refusal to say if Trump will keep his promise comes on the heels of a Bloomberg report that the Republican replacement plan will cause 51% of people who purchase plans through the exchange to lose their coverage, and 24% of the federal funding for Medicaid is going to be taken away.

The numbers add up to roughly 20 million Americans losing their health care under the Republican replacement plan. The numbers don’t include the hundreds of millions of Americans who will move from fully insured to underinsured and have their out of pocket health care costs increase.

The duck and dodge on the health care question by Trump’s White House Deputy Press Secretary are proof that Republicans fully intend to take health care away from tens of millions of people.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association