In tweets on Saturday, President Trump championed Senate Republicans’ draft bill to roll back the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The…
His tweets have the power to shape international relations, send stock prices up — or down — and galvanize the American public.
We’re watching how Donald Trump is using this platform of unfettered communication now that he’s commander in chief. Here is everything Trump has tweeted since he was sworn in as 45th president of the United States. In many cases, we look at what he was reacting to and whether what he said was accurate. And, as much as possible, we’ll relate what else was going on at the time. Check back for more as Trump continues to tweet.
In tweets on Saturday, President Trump championed Senate Republicans’ draft bill to roll back the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
The legislative outline unveiled Thursday, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s team wrote largely behind closed doors, includes a drastic reduction in federal healthcare spending that threatens to leave millions more Americans uninsured, drive up costs for poor consumers and further destabilize the nation’s health insurance markets.
Democrats emerged in unified opposition to the legislation, which also drew quick condemnation from across the nation’s healthcare system and from leading consumer advocates.
Though the Senate draft has not yet been analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office, it hews closely to the Obamacare repeal bill passed last month by House Republicans.
The budget office projected the House bill would cause insurance deductibles to rise. Average premiums for those who buy their own coverage would be lower in some states after 2020 than under Obamacare, but the decrease would be driven largely driven by the fact that more people would have plans that cover fewer benefits and shift more costs to consumers, budget analysts wrote.
Older and poorer Americans would also see higher premiums under the House bill, according to the budget office .
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that by slashing taxes on the wealthy and cutting healthcare for the poor, “the Senate version of Trumpcare is even meaner than the House bill.”
After McConnell released the text of the draft healthcare legislation to a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans on Thursday, four conservatives — Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky — announced their opposition.
“It looks a lot like Obamacare, actually, ” Paul said of the draft .
On Friday, a fifth Republican senator — Nevada’s Dean Heller — said that he planned to vote against the bill .
Heller said that his chief reason for opposing the legislation was its deep reductions in federal support for Medicaid, but he also cited the bill’s impact on treatment for opioid addiction and the likelihood that the plan would fail to reduce premiums.
“There isn’t anything in this piece of legislation that will lower your premiums, ” he said, contradicting one of the main arguments that supporters of the bill have made.
Several more centrist senators, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, have voiced similar concerns.
Collins and Portman have both said they want to review the analysis of the bill from the Congressional Budget Office before making up their minds. The budget office has said it will release that assessment early next week.
