Trump still has no health care plan as he heads into next election

Donald Trump focused much of his 2016 campaign around a promise to repeal and replace Obamacare with something “terrific” that covers every American. But this unfulfilled pledge is not even listed on the 50-point “2nd term agenda” his campaign released on Sunday.

Also absent is anything about the massive border wall he used to say Mexico would bankroll.

“Building on the incredible achievements of President Donald J. Trump’s first term in office, the President’s re-election campaign today released a set of core priorities for a second term under the banner of ‘Fighting for You!'” the Trump 2020 said in its press release. “President Trump’s boundless optimism and certainty in America’s greatness is reflected in his second-term goals and stands in stark contrast to the gloomy vision of America projected by Joe Biden and Democrats.”

The list includes an array of vague ideas (“Return to Normal in 2021”), recycled 2016 pledges (“Get Allies to Pay their Fair Share”), and outright lies (“Continue to Lead the World in Access to the Cleanest Drinking Water and Cleanest Air”).

But while the “agenda” include sections on “illegal immigration” and “healthcare,” gone are the largest broken promises of 2016.

The words “repeal,” “replace,” “Obamacare,” and “Trumpcare” are nowhere to be found, though Trump does say he will “Put Patients and Doctors Back in Charge of our Healthcare System,” “Lower Healthcare Insurance Premiums,” and “Cover all Pre-Existing Conditions.” The Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) already covers preexisting conditions, though that did not stop Trump from announcing a bizarre executive order earlier this month to require insurers to do so.

Trump promised to “repeal and replace” Obamacare at least 68 times.

In July 2015, candidate Trump promised to scrap Obamacare and switch to “something terrific.”

“It’s private. You will get great plans, you will have great competition, everything else. Now, at the lower end, where people have no money, I want to try and help those people. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” he told CNN.

Trump said he would get it done as soon as he was inaugurated and that every American would be covered under his new system.

“You’re going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price and that’s gonna take place immediately after we go in. Okay?” he claimed in February 2016. “Immediately. Fast. Quick.”

“We’re going to take care of them. We’re going to take care of them. We have to take care of them,” Trump said of uninsured Americans in a February 2016 MSNBC appearance. “Now, that’s not single payer. That’s not anything. That’s just human decency.”

He even suggested convening a “special session” for Congress to pass his unspecified health insurance scheme. “It will be such an honor for me, for you, and for everybody in this country because Obamacare has to be replaced and we will do it and we will do it very, very quickly,” he told supporters days before the 2016 election.

Trump never actually proposed a universal healthcare plan, instead endorsing a bill proposed by congressional Republicans that would have stripped millions of Americans of their coverage and would not have ensured cheaper or better health care.

He later denounced the bill as “mean” and lacking in “heart.” It passed in the then-GOP-controlled House without a single Democratic vote but failed in the Senate.

Since that time, Trump has repeatedly promised an imminent health plan, but not delivered one.

The word “wall” does not appear at all on the list.

Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump said over and over that he would build a massive wall along the nation’s southern border and that it would be paid for entirely by Mexico.

“I would do something very severe unless they contributed or gave us the money to build the wall. I would build it. I would build it very nicely. I’m very good at building things,” he told CNN in June 2015.

In April 2016 he told Fox News, “I would say it’ll be complete within two years from the time we start. We’ll start quickly. We’ll start quickly. And it’ll be a real wall. It’ll be a real wall.”

“We’ll build a wall, I promise. I promise, we will build a wall,” he reiterated at a campaign rally that month, If there’s ever a second term, you’ll say, man, he got that wall built fast, we’re going to put him up. So we’ll see. We’ll build the wall.”

The promise was so central to his candidacy that, after a while, he didn’t even need to repeat it himself. He thrilled his cheering supporters at rallies by asking them, “Who’s gonna pay for the wall?” and letting them yell back, “Mexico!”

Mexico has not paid a cent for the wall. Trump has tried to pretend he never made the promise. And despite siphoning billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars from military families, as of June Trump had built just three new miles worth of border wall — well short of the 450 miles he promised by the end of his term.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.