Trump: “I would like to terminate Obamacare”

At last night’s debate, Donald Trump presented Maine people with more lies and deflections, and proved over and over that if he is re-elected, he will not move a muscle to solve the problems that Maine’s working families face. From his lie that the United States is “rounding a turn” on the pandemic, to reaffirming his commitment to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act, to mocking the kitchen table issues that average Mainers face daily, Trump demonstrated that he does not care about the struggles working families are facing, or any plans to improve their lives.

When asked to defend his administration’s coronavirus response, Trump continued to downplay the threat while confirming that he still has no plan to get the virus under control. Instead of presenting a comprehensive strategy to protect the people he’s supposed to serve, he claimed that Americans are “learning to live” with the virus and that the United States is “rounding a turn,” even as the country faces a third surge of cases with more than 220,000 deaths. Trump also refused to take responsibility for his failed pandemic response, even though the New England Journal of Medicine recently called the administration’s response “dangerously incompetent.” 

When the debate turned to the most important issue on Mainers’ minds––health care––Trump reaffirmed that his only plan is to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act, repeating his comments from earlier in the day in a “60 Minutes” interview that he “hopes” the GOP-packed Supreme Court ends the ACA. However, Trump still doesn’t have a replacement plan, and striking down the ACA would cause Maine’s uninsured rate to triple and kick more than 100,000 Mainers off their health insurance while gutting protections for the 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions.

“At the debate last night, Donald Trump reaffirmed what we already knew––he doesn’t care about Maine families and has no plans to fix any of the life or death issues they are facing,” said Maine Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Marra. “More than 220,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and cases are surging, but Trump just wants to pretend like the pandemic is over. Even worse, he wants to take away health care from more than 105,000 Mainers without any plan to replace it. We need Joe Biden in the White House because he cares that families are struggling right now, and will fight tirelessly to get them the help they need.”