Former President Barack Obama told donors Thursday that he allegedly instructed the current president to just rename his signature healthcare bill Obamacare and take credit for its successes.
During a question and answer session at a fundraiser with Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez, the former president stressed he would have been happy if President Donald Trump kept the Affordable Care Act and only changed its name, instead of trying to repeal it.
“I said to the incoming president, ‘Just change the name and claim that you made these wonderful changes’,” Obama said. “Because I didn’t have pride of authorship, I just wanted people to have health care.”
Obama added that Trump couldn’t repeal ACA, “despite controlling all branches of government in Washington. They couldn’t do it because we had actually thought it through and it’s a hard thing to do.”
However, at one point he told audiences that Trump practically repealed Obamacare by repealing the law’s individual mandate as part of the tax plan passed late last year.
Despite talking extensively on health care and attempts by the current administration to repeal his signature law, Obama did not refer to Trump by name even once. He repeatedly said that Republicans could keep the Affordable Care Act by just renaming it and deciding not to change it.
“They can even change the name of the law to Reagancare,” he said back in 2016. “Or they can call it Paul Ryancare. I don’t care about credit. I just want it to work.”
Obama then pointed out that his decision to take on this issue was in no way motivated by “fun” or the wish to be remembered by something.
“The idea that I somehow took on health care just because I thought it was fun or it would somehow burnish my legacy is nuts,” he noted. “Because we knew going in in 2008 that every president since Teddy Roosevelt had failed to do what every other advanced democracy in the world has done,” Obama concluded.
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