NBC News’ Kristen Welker took on Donald Trump’s talk of “concepts of a plan” for health care in a sit-down interview with the president-elect on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press.”
“Sir, you said during the campaign you had concepts of a plan, do you have an actual plan at this point for health care?” asked Welker in reference to Trump’s vague claim during his debate with Kamala Harris.
“Yes, we have concepts of a plan that would be better,” Trump replied.
“Still just concepts? Do you have a fully-developed plan?” added the host of “Meet the Press.”
“We have the biggest health care companies looking at it. We have doctors who are always looking. Because Obamacare stinks, it’s lousy. There are better answers,” he said.
He continued, “If we come up with a better answer, I would present that answer to Democrats and to everybody else and I’d do something about it. But until we have that or until they can approve it — we’re not going to go through the big deal. I am the one that saved Obamacare, I will say and I did the right thing.”
Trump, when asked if Americans will see his “fully-developed” plan, said he doesn’t know people if will “see it at all.”
He told Welker that Americans with pre-existing conditions will still have coverage under his “concepts of a plan” and declared that he wants “better health care for less money.”
The president-elect — who promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act during his 2016 campaign — has tried to rewrite history on his Obamacare record by claiming that he tried to “save” the law when he was president.
Earlier in the interview, Welker cited Republicans who told her it’s “no longer feasible” to repeal and replace Obamacare because it’s “so entrenched in the system.”
“Do you see it that way? Is that now off the table?” she asked.
Trump used his answer to slam the late Sen. John McCain (R) for his thumbs-down vote against repealing the ACA’s individual mandate. He went on to describe how he made it so Obamacare “works.”
“But you did try to overturn it, sir,” Welker noted.
“It’s lou — well, it’s lousy,” Trump said.
“You did try to overturn it. You did have your Justice Department try to direct the Supreme Court to overturn it,” she continued.
Trump claimed he got a “little bit of a surprising opinion” from the court before adding that Americans would have had “much better” health care if it were overturned.
“I could’ve made the worst of it and it would have fallen by the wayside. I did the right thing from a human standpoint,” he said.