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More headlines: Donald Trump on Health Care

(Following are older quotations. Click here for main quotations.)


Fact-Check: 4,311 drugs had price hike; 619 were lowered

President Trump said, "We have approved a record number of affordable generic drugs, and medicines are being approved by the FDA at a faster clip than ever before. I was pleased to announce last year that, for the first time in 51 years, the cost of prescription drugs actually went down. I am calling for bipartisan legislation that achieves the goal of dramatically lowering prescription drug prices. Get a bill to my desk, and I will sign it into law without delay."

Fact -Check: In 2019, 4,311 prescription drugs experienced a price hike, with the average increase hovering around 21%, according to data compiled by Rx Savings Solutions, a consulting group. Meanwhile, 619 drugs had price dips. And already in 2020, 2,519 drugs have increased prices. The average hike so far this year is 6.9%. Meanwhile, the prices of 70 drugs have dropped. When generics post their price increases, the 2020 average price hike will likely go up.

Source: PolitiFact Fact-Check on 2020 State of the Union address Feb 5, 2020

FactCheck: Sued to end pre-existing condition protection

Trump said in the 2019 State of the Union address that he would "protect patients with pre-existing conditions."

THE FACTS: His rhetoric is at odds with his actions. In reality, his administration is seeking in a lawsuit to eliminate such coverage. His Justice Department is arguing in court that those protections in the Obama-era health law should fall. The short-term health plans Trump often promotes as a bargain alternative offer no guarantee of covering pre-existing conditions.

Government lawyers said in legal filings last June that they will no longer defend key parts of the Affordable Care Act, including provisions that guarantee access to health insurance regardless of any medical conditions. Then-Attorney General Sessions wrote in a letter to Congress that Trump approved the legal strategy.

Obama's health care law requires insurers to take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and patients with health problems pay the same standard premiums as healthy ones.

Source: A.P. Fact-Check on 2019 State of the Union address Feb 6, 2019

Save Medicare & Medicaid without cutting them to the bone

He pledged to save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid "without cutting it to the bone" by "making the country rich again." He vowed to repeal Obama's Affordable Care Act and replace it with something better, although he didn't provide any details.

Trump made no effort to woo mainstream GOP elected officials. He remarked, "I am a Republican, and I am disappointed with our Republican politicians because they let our president get away with absolute murder."

Source: Des Moines Register on 2015 Iowa Freedom Summit Jan 24, 2015

1988: Flew sick kids cross-country on his private jet

On the day before the Rosh Hashanah holiday each year for the past eighteen years, I receive a message from a Rabbi in Los Angles. The reason the Rabbi calls me every year is because back in 1988, he and his wife had a three-year-old son who had an illness that was confounding the doctors in Los Angeles. One day the boy's father called me to see if they could borrow my jet. He didn't know me, and I didn't know him. But he explained that no commercial airline would fly his son due to the extreme equipment required to sustain his life. It was considered too big of a risk. I had small children at the time, and I immediately said yes to his request. How could I say no?

I sent my jet out and brought the little boy and his parents to NYC with the hope that doctors here might find a cure for the severe breathing illness from which he was suffering. His cure was not to be, but his parents remained grateful to this day.

Source: Think Like a Champion, by Donald Trump, p. 13-4 Apr 27, 2010

Biden will terminate 180 million healthcare plans

TRUMP: We'll always protect people with pre-existing. I'd like to terminate ObamaCare, come up with a brand new healthcare. We have 180 million people out there that have great private healthcare. Joe Biden is going to terminate all of those policies. These are people that love their healthcare. People that have been successful, middle-income people.

BIDEN: Not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under ObamaCare. They did not lose their insurance unless they chose they wanted to go to something else.

TRUMP: I terminated the individual mandate. That is the worst part of ObamaCare. The individual mandate where you have to pay a fortune for the privilege of not having to pay for bad health insurance. Now, it's in court, because ObamaCare is no good. Then I made a decision, run it as well as you can. They ran it. Premiums are down. Here's the problem. No matter how well you run it, it's no good. What we'd like to do is terminate it.

Source: Third 2020 Presidential Debate, moderated by Kristen Welker Oct 22, 2020

Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions

The president tweeted, "Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn't work. Premiums & deductibles are far too high--Really bad HealthCare! Even the Dems want to replace it, but with Medicare for all, which would cause 180 million Americans to lose their beloved private health insurance."

"The Republicans are developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare," Trump continued. "In other words it will be far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare. Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans win back the House."

Trump wrote online that the Republican proposal "will be truly great HealthCare that will work for America," and that "Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions."

The president's comments come after his Justice Department endorsed a federal court ruling to eliminate ObamaCare in its entirety; Trump declared that the Republican Party "will soon be known as the party of health care."

Source: Politico.com on Trump promises, "Healthcare 2020" Apr 1, 2019

Strike down ObamaCare as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster

Open enrollment for ObamaCare will continue despite the federal judge's ruling that the law is unconstitutional and must be "invalidated in whole." U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, a federal judge in Texas appointed by President George W. Bush, ruled that last year's tax cut bill knocked the constitutional foundation from under ObamaCare by eliminating a penalty for not having coverage. The rest of the law cannot be separated from that provision and is therefore invalid, he wrote.

Trump tweeted his support for the ruling, saying, "ObamaCare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster!" He continued, "Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions." Another tweet said, "Wow, but not surprisingly, ObamaCare was just ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a highly respected judge in Texas. Great news for America!"

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to become House speaker in January, vowed to fight what she called an "absurd ruling."

Source: Fox News on 2018 Trump Administration, "$150M student debt" Dec 15, 2018

We have gutted ObamaCare by ending individual mandate

The individual mandate is a key part of ObamaCare, but it is far from the entire thing. Trump did not touch ObamaCare's expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people, the federal and state ObamaCare marketplaces that allow other uninsured people to buy insurance, and the subsidies that help many of them make the purchases. Nor did he touch various ObamaCare rules for the insurance market, like its prohibition on insurers denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Source: Toronto Star on Trump's promise on Border Wall Dec 29, 2017

The whole of ObamaCare was a fraud

Q: Your husband called ObamaCare, "the craziest thing in the world." Was he mistaken?

CLINTON: No, he clarified what he meant. If we were to start all over again, we might come up with a different system. But we have an employer-based system. So let's fix what's broken about it, but let's not throw it away.

TRUMP: First of all, everything's broken about it. Everything.

Q: You've said you want to end ObamaCare, but you've also said you want to make coverage accessible for people with pre-existing conditions. How?

TRUMP: We're going to be able to. You're going to have plans that are so good, because we're going to have so much competition in the insurance industry.

Q: Are you going to have a mandate?

TRUMP: ObamaCare, by the way, was a fraud. Jonathan Gruber, the architect of ObamaCare, said it was a great lie, it was a big lie. President Obama said you keep your doctor, you keep your plan. The whole thing was a fraud, and it doesn't work.

Source: Second 2016 Presidential Debate at WUSTL in St. Louis MO Oct 9, 2016

Replace Obamacare with Health Savings Accounts

Q: On health care, Ben Carson's calling for health savings accounts. What do you think of that?

TRUMP: Well, I'm OK with the savings accounts. I think it's a good idea; it's a very down-the-middle idea. It works. It's something that's proven. The one thing we have to do is repeal and replace ObamaCare. It is a disaster. People's premiums are going up 35 percent, 45 percent, 55 percent. Their deductibles are so high nobody's ever going to get to use it. So ObamaCare is turning out to be a bigger disaster than anybody thought.

Q: So if you agree with these health savings accounts idea, do you also agree with Ben Carson when he says Medicare probably won't be necessary?

TRUMP: Well, it's possible. You're going to have to look at that, but I'll tell you what, the health savings accounts, I've been talking about it also. I think it's a very good idea.

Source: ABC This Week 2015 interview by Martha Raddatz Oct 25, 2015

ObamaCare deductibles are so high that it's useless

We have a disaster called the big lie: ObamaCare. Yesterday, it came out that costs are going for people up 29, 39, 49, and even 55%, and deductibles are through the roof. You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, to use it, because the deductibles are so high, it's virtually useless. It is a disaster.

And remember the $5 billion Web site? $5 billion we spent on a Web site, and to this day it doesn't work. I have so many Web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a Web site.

And it's going to get worse, because remember, ObamaCare really kicks in, in 2016. It is going to be amazingly destructive. Doctors are quitting. I have a friend who's a doctor, and he said to me, "Donald, I never saw anything like it. I have more accountants than I have nurses."

We have to repeal ObamaCare, and it can be replaced with something much better for everybody. Let it be for everybody. But much better and much less expensive for people and for the government. And we can do it.

Source: 2015 announcement speeches of 2016 presidential hopefuls Jun 16, 2015

People with masks can still catch coronavirus

BIDEN: From March on, I started wearing masks. And what's Trump doing? Nothing. He's still not wearing masks.

Q: At the event [in Oct. 2020] before you tested positive, there was an indoor reception. People were not wearing masks. Shouldn't the White House know better than to hold an event like that?

TRUMP: Well, they do a lot of testing in the White House; they test everybody including me. As far as the mask is concerned, I'm okay with masks. I tell people, "wear a mask." But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it.

Q: It didn't say that. I know that study.

TRUMP: That's what I heard. Hey, I'm President. I can't be in a basement. I have to be out.

Q: You can see people with a mask, though, right?

TRUMP: I can, but people with masks are catching it all the time. Look at the Governor of Virginia, he was known for a mask. If you look at Thom Tillis, a great guy, he always had a mask, and they caught it.

Source: Second 2020 Presidential Debate/NBC Town Hall Miami Oct 15, 2020

COVID: We're very close to having vaccine

Frankly, we're very close to having the vaccine. If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals, and we're within weeks of getting it. You know, could be three weeks, four weeks, but we think we have it. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, we have great companies and they're very, very close. So I feel that we've done a tremendous job actually, and I don't think it's been recognized like it should.
Source: ABC This Week: special edition 2020 Town Hall interview Sep 15, 2020

Biden promised a national mask mandate and didn't do it

Q: What about facemasks for coronavirus prevention?

TRUMP: They said at the Democrat convention they're going to do a national mandate. They never did it, because they've checked out and they didn't do it. And a good question is, you ask why Joe Biden--they said we're going to do a national mandate on masks. But he didn't do it. He never did it.

BIDEN (tweeting a response): "To be clear: I am not currently president."

Source: ABC This Week: special edition 2020 Town Hall interview Sep 15, 2020

COVID: If we wouldn't do testing you wouldn't have cases

Q: What about a coronavirus vaccine?

TRUMP: Frankly, we're very close to having the vaccine. If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals, and we're within weeks of getting it. You know, could be three weeks, four weeks, but we think we have it. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, we have great companies and they're very, very close. So I feel that we've done a tremendous job actually, and I don't think it's been recognized like it should.

Q: What the next step in fighting the virus?

TRUMP: We're very proud of the job we've done, and we've saved a lot of lives, a tremendous number of lives.

Q: We have 4% of the world's population, more than 20% of the cases, more than 20% of the deaths.

TRUMP: We have 20% of the cases because of the fact that we do much more testing. If we wouldn't do testing you wouldn't have cases. You would have very few cases.

Source: ABC This Week: special edition 2020 Town Hall interview Sep 15, 2020

COVID: Why didn't Biden have national mask mandate?

Q: What about wearing facemasks for coronavirus?

TRUMP: They said at the Democrat convention they're going to do a national mandate. They never did it, because they've checked out and they didn't do it. And a good question is, you ask why Joe Biden--they said we're going to do a national mandate on masks. But he didn't do it. He never did it.

Q: You were saying it was going to disappear.

TRUMP: It is going to disappear. It's going to disappear, I still say it.

Q: But not if we don't take action, correct?

TRUMP: No, I still say it. It's going to disappear, George. I want to see people, and you want to see people. I want to see football games. I'm pushing very hard for Big Ten, I want to see Big Ten open. Let them play sports.

Source: ABC This Week: special edition 2020 Town Hall interview Sep 15, 2020

COVID: Supported China travel ban and national emergency

The president said in the State of the Union [on Feb. 5, 2020], "protecting Americans' health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat."

On Jan. 31, President Trump had declared the coronavirus a public health emergency and announced travel restrictions for China. While the president and his team were starting preparations in the event of an outbreak in the US, many leading Democrats in Washington were too distracted by impeachment to care about the emerging threat.

Despite criticism from Democrats and the media, the president made the right call with the travel ban. He was also right to declare a national emergency and implement social distancing guidelines--not forever, but until we flattened the curve--which likely prevented the failure of hospitals and prevented many American deaths.

Source: Speaking for Myself, by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, p.247 Sep 8, 2020

FactCheck: No, America has tested less than Europe combined

Trump claimed in his Aug 28 convention speech that "America has tested more than every country in Europe put together." The U.S. has tested many millions of people, but that statement isn't true: