Mike Johnson promises 'massive' healthcare changes if Trump wins | US elections 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris may have received another last-minute helping hand from Republicans after House Speaker Mike Johnson said there would be “massive” changes to health care if Donald Trump wins next Tuesday, including abolition of Obamacare.

“Health care reform is going to be an important part of the agenda,” Johnson told the crowd at a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday. “When I say we're going to have a very aggressive agenda for the first 100 days, we still have a lot of things on the table.”

“No Obamacare?” one rally attendee asked Johnson, referring to the law that Democrats passed in 2010, also known as the Affordable Care Act.

“No Obamacare,” Johnson responded, according to NBC News. “The ACA is so entrenched that we need major reforms to make this work, and we have lots of ideas about how to make that happen.”

Harris is outperforming Trump on health care in battleground states, where it ranks as the fourth most important issue among voters, behind the economy, inflation and threats to democracy, according to a Washington Post-Schare school poll.

During the televised presidential debate in September, Trump said he had “developed the concepts for a plan” to replace Obamacare.

The former president proposed a reform plan in the 2020 budget, saying he supports “several initiatives to empower states and consumers to take back control of health care and increase affordability and consumer choice.” The plan included repealing the ACA's premium subsidies and expanding Medicaid, replacing it with a block grant to states, and would have limited federal spending on Medicaid. The plan could have reduced federal health care spending by more than $1 trillion within a decade.

In their platform, Democrats argue that more than 20 million Americans have gained health insurance and that the share of uninsured people has been nearly halved under Obamacare, including 2.3 million young adults. They note that discrimination in healthcare based on pre-existing conditions is now illegal.

“Democrats have fought for generations to secure universal health care for the American people, and we are proud to be the party that passed Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act,” the policy statement said.

A return to pre-Obamacare policies would mean a return to “free market” health care, which would compromise health protection for vulnerable populations, Democrats argue.

“We want to take a blowtorch approach to the regulatory state,” Johnson reportedly said. “These agencies have been used as a weapon against the people, destroying the free market; It’s like a boot on the neck of job creators, entrepreneurs and risk takers.”