Source: WXII
Just days before North Carolina expanded Medicaid to 600,000 more North Carolinians, twice-impeached former President Donald Trump took to social media and threatened to take away health care from millions of Americans, should he beat President Joe Biden next November, WXII reported.
In his post, Trump once again threatened to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, saying he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to the ACA. Medicaid expansion is a key component of the ACA and has provided health insurance coverage to millions of Americans. After a decade-plus of Republican opposition, North Carolina became the 40th state to expand Medicaid – at no cost to the state – on Dec. 1.
Gov. Roy Cooper and California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi responded to Trump’s threat in a conference call set up by the Biden campaign less than a week before Medicaid expansion went into effect.
“The American people will need to know that if Donald Trump wins next year, he’s coming for your health care,” Pelosi said.
Republicans have been opposed to the ACA since it was implemented and have tried multiple times to repeal the law. The most recent serious attempt at repealing the law happened in 2017 when the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain cast the deciding vote to save Obamacare.
More than six years after the last real attempt at repeal, the prospects have all but faded for Republicans to get rid of the law – outside of action by the president.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis told Politico that, “We’ve gotten so far down the road now that it’s almost technically impossible to [repeal the ACA].”
In addition to the political reality of trying to once again strip health insurance from millions of people, the latest poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 59% of the public are now in favor of the ACA.
“Donald Trump insists on fighting these old political battles that are an anvil around Republicans’ necks,” Cooper said on the call.
Focusing on health care in North Carolina, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson – who has endorsed Trump and is expected to be endorsed by the ex-president soon – wants to be the state’s next governor, but he not only opposes Medicaid expansion for 600,000 North Carolinians, he has publicly voiced his hope that it fails.
“I’m not in favor of Medicaid expansion,” he said, “I hope that it fails.”
Even after Medicaid expansion passed with bipartisan support earlier this year, Robinson said that he was “dismayed” and “not pleased” about its passage. He went on to say that he was “still not in favor of that” and he “[doesn’t] like that it’s here.”
Much like Trump, it seems as though the cruelty of Robinson’s positions is the point.
