President Joe Biden has repeatedly warned voters on the campaign trail that his opponent, former President Donald Trump, would take away their health care if he regains the White House.
"MAGA Republicans have tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act more than 50 times, and Trump is still determined to do it," Biden said May 19 in Detroit. "In his words, he wants to ‘terminate’ the Affordable Care Act, which would deny 3 million Black Americans health insurance, deny protections for preexisting conditions for millions more Americans. But we’re going to deny Trump."
Biden has made similar statements in speeches, interviews and ads and has featured clips of Trump calling the ACA, also known as Obamacare, a "disaster" and saying that Trump "wants to terminate it." Former President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law in 2010.
Trump campaigned on a promise to repeal Obamacare in 2016; a promise we rated Broken. He kept that anti-ACA position throughout his term, even after Republican senators, notably the late-Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., voted against repealing the health care law in 2017. In July 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a case from Republican-led states and the former Trump administration that had asked justices to block the law. In late 2023, Trump renewed his vow to replace Obamacare multiple times.
In March, Trump publicly announced a change in position. He wrote on Truth Social that he doesn’t want to terminate the ACA, but instead wants to make it "better."
"I’m not running to terminate the ACA," Trump wrote in his March 26 post. Instead, he said he would make the law "MUCH BETTER, STRONGER, AND FAR LESS EXPENSIVE."
The Biden campaign responded by telling PolitiFact that Trump’s single post on improving Obamacare needs to be compared with his repeated threats to dismantle it.
"Here is a fact Truth Social posts and transparently false spin from his campaign can’t fix: Donald Trump tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and rip away health care from millions when he was president — and has promised to do it again. Repeatedly," Ammar Moussa, Biden-Harris campaign director of rapid response, wrote in an email.
Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s position on the Affordable Care Act during the 2024 campaignTrump said multiple times on Truth Social in November and December that he would try to replace Obamacare, before backtracking in March.
"The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare. I’m seriously looking at alternatives," Trump wrote Nov, 25 on Truth Social. "We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!"
On Nov. 29 he wrote, "I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT with MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE. Obamacare Sucks. "
On Dec. 25: "Obamacare is too expensive, and otherwise, not good healthcare. I will come up with a much better, and less expensive, alternative! People will be happy, not sad!"
But after Biden started to release ads resurfacing Trump’s promises to get rid of Obamacare, Trump in March accused Biden of misinforming on his position, and shared his new stance that vowed to improve on the health care program.