ObamaCare has suddenly emerged as a 2024 election issue—at least in regard to the general election. Former President Trump threatened over the weekend to reopen the contentious fight over the Affordable Care Act after failing to repeal it while in the White House, saying he is "seriously looking at alternatives" if he wins a second term. Trump's comments drew a rebuke from President Biden's campaign, which cast them as another "extremist" proposal from the GOP frontrunner, per the AP. And the campaign rapidly moved to mobilize a response, including new advertising in battleground states contrasting Biden's efforts to lower drug costs with Trump's comments.
"My predecessor once again called for cuts that could rip away health insurance for tens of millions of Americans," Biden himself said on Monday, per the New York Times. "They just don't give up." The back-and-forth points to what could be a key issue in a general election rematch between Trump and Biden if both win their parties' nominations, as is widely expected. Trump has not spent much time discussing health care as he has laid out an aggressive agenda for a potential second term that has focused on immigration crackdowns and mass deportations, as well as efforts to target political rivals. But he weighed in on the issue Saturday morning on his Truth Social site.
ObamaCare's cost "is out of control, plus, it's not good Healthcare. I'm seriously looking at alternatives," he wrote. One reason Democrats look forward to this debate—the Times' Reid J. Epstein writes that few things bring Biden campaign aides "more joy" than a Trump attack on ObamaCare—is that the law is increasingly popular. About 6 in 10 Americans say they have a favorable opinion of the health reform bill signed into law in 2010, known commonly as the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, according to a KFF poll conducted in May 2023.
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Trump complained that a "low point" for the GOP came when former Sen. John McCain cast the deciding vote against legislation to repeal the law in 2017. "We should never give up!" declared the former president. "We've got Donald Trump every single day providing the American people a window into how harmful he would be if he were able to regain power," says Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler. "He is making this easy for us." (More Donald Trump 2024 stories.)
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