During this week’s presidential debate, ABC News’ Lindsey Davis reminded Donald Trump that he’s “long vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare,” and asked, “So tonight, nine years after you first ran for president, do you have a plan? Tell me what it is.”
The Republican candidate’s answers faltered for a while: He claimed he “saved” the ACA during his first term — a brazen lie — before assuring voters that he and his team were “working on the problem.”
When asked if he had a plan to replace “Obamacare,” the former president responded, “We have a plan in mind,” adding that Americans would hear more about it in the “not too distant future.”
This did not go unnoticed by his Democratic rivals. As the Washington Post reported:
At a campaign event in Charlotte, Kamala Harris began mocking comments Donald Trump made during Tuesday’s presidential debate about what to do about Obamacare, and the crowd began chanting “A concept!”, repeating Trump’s response that he had a “concept” for health care.
Not only did the vice president highlight the rhetoric of her Republican opponent, but he also mocked Trump and made him the butt of jokes. Hours later, Harris did the same thing again at a second event in North Carolina.
Around the same time, the Harris campaign issued a press release making clear that Republicans are trying to dismantle our existing health care system, a fact that has been well documented.
As NBC News reported yesterday, Trump spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt told CNN that the candidate plans to announce his health care policy plan in the “not too distant future.” Asked when that might happen, she added that the campaign has not yet set a specific date.
It’s understandable why the Trump campaign feels the need to play this boring game, but Republicans and their political activism have been making ridiculous promises in this direction for years, and the idea that he’ll be announcing an actual plan anytime soon is literally laughable.
Indeed, let’s take a little walk down memory lane and note the familiarity of the situation.
For example, in mid-July 2020, President Trump appeared on Fox News as part of his re-election campaign and said, “We’re going to sign health care reform within two weeks. A complete, complete health care reform.”
As regular readers will recall, two weeks passed, and the “full and complete” health care plan was nowhere to be seen. As July 2020 drew to a close, the then-president was forced to offer some explanation. He told reporters, “We’re going to get a very comprehensive health care plan in place. I’m going to sign it very soon. It could be Sunday, but I’m going to sign it very soon.”
On August 3, 2020, President Trump announced a new timeline: “I’m happy to say that we’re going to have a great health care system in place by the end of this month. We’re almost there now.”
August 2020, of course, came and went without any announcement of this elusive plan. In mid-September 2020, the then-president expressed hesitation at the idea that he hadn’t made good on his promise. “I’m all set. I’m all set,” Trump told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, adding, “I’m all set.”
That was exactly four years ago this week, and he still hadn’t quite got it all together.
A month later, Trump, a Republican, told CBS News’ Lesley Stahl that his health care plan was “coming soon.” After Trump abruptly ended the interview, then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany handed the “60 Minutes” anchor a thick binder that she said contained the White House health care plan, when in fact it didn’t.
Four years later, not only is Trump talking about “concepts” of a plan that doesn’t exist, but his campaign continues to insist on the fiction that a blueprint for the plan will soon be released.
My advice: don’t hold your breath waiting for a plan that never appears.
This post is an update of a related earlier article.
