{"id":36155,"date":"2017-03-24T17:08:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-25T00:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=36155"},"modified":"2017-03-24T17:08:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-25T00:08:44","slug":"president-trump-on-health-care-bill-falling-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=36155","title":{"rendered":"President Trump On Health Care Bill Falling Short"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Thank you very much.  We were very close, and it was a very, very tight margin.  We had no Democrat support.  We had no votes from the Democrats.  They weren\u2019t going to give us a single vote, so it&#8217;s a very difficult thing to do.  I&#8217;ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode.  It is exploding right now.  Many states have big problems &#8212; almost all states have big problems.  I was in Tennessee the other day, and they\u2019ve lost half of their state in terms of an insurer; they have no insurer.  And that&#8217;s happened to many other places.  I was in Kentucky the other day, and similar things are happening.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7F2pGAhaiSI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So Obamacare is exploding.  With no Democrat support, we couldn&#8217;t quite get there.  We were just a very small number of votes short in terms of getting our bill passed.  A lot of people don&#8217;t realize how good our bill was because they were viewing phase one.  But when you add phase two &#8212; which was mostly the signings of Secretary Price, who&#8217;s behind me &#8212; and you add phase three, which I think we would have gotten &#8212; it became a great bill.  Premiums would have gone down and it would have been very stable, it would have been very strong.  But that&#8217;s okay.  <\/p>\n<p>But we&#8217;re very, very close.  And again, I think what will happen is Obamacare, unfortunately, will explode.  It&#8217;s going to have a very bad year.  Last year you had over a 100 percent increases in various places.  In Arizona, I understand it&#8217;s going up very rapidly again, like it did last year; last year it was 116 percent.  Many places, 50, 60, 70 percent, I guess it averaged &#8212; whatever the average was &#8212; very, very high.   And this year should be much worse for Obamacare.<\/p>\n<p>So what would be really good, with no Democrat support, is if the Democrats, when it explodes &#8212; which it will soon &#8212; if they got together with us and got a real healthcare bill.  I would be totally up to do it.  And I think that&#8217;s going to happen.  I think the losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because now they own Obamacare.  They own it &#8212; 100 percent own it.  <\/p>\n<p>And this is not a Republican healthcare, this is not anything but a Democrat healthcare.  And they have Obamacare for a little while longer, until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future.  And just remember this is not our bill, this is their bill.<\/p>\n<p>Now, when they all become civilized and get together, and try and work out a great healthcare bill for the people of this country, we&#8217;re open to it.  We&#8217;re totally open to it.  <\/p>\n<p>I want to thank the Republican Party.  I want to thank Paul Ryan &#8212; he worked very, very hard, I will tell you that.  He worked very, very hard.  Tom Price and Mike Pence &#8212; who\u2019s right here &#8212; our Vice President, our great Vice President.  Everybody worked hard.  I worked as a team player and would have loved to have seen it passed.  But again, I think you know I was very clear, I think there wasn\u2019t a speech I made, or very few where I didn\u2019t mention that perhaps the best thing that can happen is exactly what happened today, because we&#8217;ll end up with a truly great healthcare bill in the future, after this mess known as Obamacare explodes.<\/p>\n<p>So I want to thank everybody for being here.  It will go very smoothly, I really believe.  I think this is something &#8212; it certainly was an interesting period of time.  We all learned a lot.  We learned a lot about loyalty.  We learned a lot about the vote-getting process.  We learned a lot about some very arcane rules in, obviously, both the Senate and in the House.  So it&#8217;s been &#8212; certainly for me, it&#8217;s been a very interesting experience.  But in the end, I think it&#8217;s going to be an experience that leads to an even better healthcare plan.  <\/p>\n<p>So thank you all very much.  And I&#8217;ll see you soon.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Mr. President, is it now your intention to go for tax reform?  Or what\u2019s next on your priority list?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  We&#8217;ll be going right now for tax reform, which we could have done earlier, but this really would have worked out better if we could have had some Democrat support.  Remember this:  We had no Democrat support.  So now we&#8217;re going to go for tax reform, which I&#8217;ve always liked.<\/p>\n<p>Q    And you&#8217;re confident in Speaker Ryan&#8217;s leadership and his ability to get things done?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, I am.  I like Speaker Ryan.  He worked very, very hard.  A lot of different groups, he&#8217;s got a lot of factions.  And there&#8217;s been a long history of liking and disliking, even within the Republican Party, long before I got here.  But I&#8217;ve had a great relationship with the Republican Party.  It seems that both sides like Trump, and that&#8217;s good.  And you see that, I guess, more clearly than anybody.<\/p>\n<p>But we&#8217;ve had a &#8212; I&#8217;m not going to speak badly about anybody within the party.  But certainly there&#8217;s a big history.  I think Paul really worked hard.  And I would say that we will probably start going very, very strong for the big tax cuts and tax reform.  That will be next.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Sir, is it fair to Americans to let Obamacare explode?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Well, it&#8217;s going to happen.  There&#8217;s not much you can do about it.  It&#8217;s going to &#8212; bad things are going to happen to Obamacare.  There&#8217;s not much you can do to help it.  I&#8217;ve been saying that for a year and a half.  I said, look, eventually it&#8217;s not sustainable.  The insurance companies are leaving &#8212; you know that.  They&#8217;re leaving one by one, as quick as you can leave.  And you have states, in some cases, who will not be covered.  So there&#8217;s no way out of that.<\/p>\n<p>But the one thing that was happening, as we got closer and closer, everybody was talking about how wonderful it was, and now we&#8217;ll go back to real life and people will see how bad it is.  And it&#8217;s getting much worse.  <\/p>\n<p>You know, I said the other day, when President Obama left &#8212; &#8217;17, he knew he wasn\u2019t going to be here; &#8217;17 is going to be a very, very bad year for Obamacare.  Very, very bad.  You&#8217;re going to have explosive premium increases.  And the deductibles are so high people don\u2019t even get to use it.<\/p>\n<p>So they&#8217;ll go with that for a little while.  And I honestly believe &#8212; I know some of the Democrats, and they&#8217;re good people &#8212; I honestly believe the Democrats will come to us and say, look, let&#8217;s get together and get a great healthcare bill or plan that&#8217;s really great for the people of our country.  And I think that&#8217;s going to happen.<\/p>\n<p>Q    If you could have passed the bill in the House without any Democratic support, why do you think you weren\u2019t able to craft a deal among the Republican Party?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we were very close.  We were just probably anywhere from 10 to 15 votes short.  Could have even been closer than that.  You&#8217;ll never know because you&#8217;ll never know how they vote.  But in the end, I think we would have been 10 votes, maybe closer.  And it was very hard to get almost 100 percent.  You&#8217;re talking about a very, very large number of votes &#8212; among any group.  And we were very close to doing it.  But when you get no votes from the other side &#8212; meaning the Democrats &#8212; it&#8217;s really a difficult situation.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Will you reach out to the Democrats now?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  No, I think we have to let Obamacare go its way for a little while, and we&#8217;ll see how things go.  I&#8217;d love to see it do well, but it can&#8217;t.  I mean, it can&#8217;t.  It&#8217;s not a question of, gee &#8212; I hope it does well.  I would love it to do well.  I want great healthcare for the people of this nation.  But it can&#8217;t do well.  It&#8217;s imploding, and soon will explode, and it&#8217;s not going to be pretty.<\/p>\n<p>So the Democrats don\u2019t want to see that, so they&#8217;re going to reach out when they&#8217;re ready.  And whenever they&#8217;re ready, we&#8217;re ready.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Do you feel betrayed by the House Freedom Caucus at all?  They seemed to be the most difficult to get.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  No, I&#8217;m not betrayed.  They&#8217;re friends of mine.  I&#8217;m disappointed because we could have had it.  So I&#8217;m disappointed.  I&#8217;m a little surprised, to be honest with you.  We really had it.  It was pretty much there within grasp.  But I&#8217;ll tell you what&#8217;s going to come out of it is a better bill &#8212; I really believe a better bill.  Because there were things in this bill I didn\u2019t particularly love.  And I think it&#8217;s a better bill.  <\/p>\n<p>You know, both parties can get together and do real healthcare.  That&#8217;s the best thing.  Obamacare was rammed down everyone&#8217;s throat &#8212; 100 percent Democrat.  And I think having bipartisan would be a big, big improvement.  <\/p>\n<p>So, no, I think that this is going to end up being a very good thing.  I&#8217;m disappointed, but they&#8217;re friends of mine, and they got &#8212; this is a very hard time for them and a very hard vote.  But they&#8217;re very good people.<\/p>\n<p>Q    You mentioned that there were things in this bill that you didn\u2019t necessarily love.  What specifically are those?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think we could have things that I would have liked more.  And if we had bipartisan, I really think we could have a healthcare bill that would be the ultimate.  And I think the Democrats know that also.  And some day, in the not&#8211;too-distant future, that will happen.  <\/p>\n<p>And I never said &#8212; I guess I&#8217;m here, what, 64 days?  I never said repeal and replace Obamacare &#8212; you&#8217;ve all heard my speeches &#8212; I never said repeal it and replace it within 64 days.  I have a long time.  But I want to have a great healthcare bill and plan &#8212; and we will.  It will happen.  And it won&#8217;t be in the very distant future.  I really believe there will be some Democrat support, and that will happen, and it will be an even better bill.  I think this was a very good bill.  I think it will be even better the next time around.  I don\u2019t think that&#8217;s going to be in too long a period of time.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Anything specifically you want to see changed going from this bill to the next bill?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  No, I mean, I don\u2019t want to speak about specifics, but there are things I could have &#8212; I would have liked even more.  But I feel overall this was a very, very good bill.  And I thought Tom Price &#8212; Dr. Tom Price &#8212; who really is amazing on healthcare, his knowledge &#8212; I thought he did a fantastic job.  Same with Mike Pence.  I think these two guys &#8212; they worked so hard and really did a fantastic job.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you very much.  Thank you.  <\/p>\n<p>END<br \/>\n4:36 P.M. EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Thank you very much. We were very close, and it was a very, very tight margin. We had no Democrat support. We had no votes from the Democrats. They weren\u2019t going to give us a single vote, so it&#8217;s a very difficult thing to do. I&#8217;ve been saying for the last year and a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Fullscreen-capture-3242017-50422-PM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}