President Trump said on Saturday that a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act will come “in a couple of weeks.”
“We are going to be submitting in a couple of weeks a great healthcare plan that’s going to take the place of the disaster known as ObamaCare,” he said at a campaign rally in Melbourne, Fla. “It will be repealed and replaced.”
“Just so you understand, our plan will be much better healthcare at a much lower cost,” he added. “OK? Nothing to complain about.”
As a presidential candidate, Trump campaigned on the promise of dismantling and replacing former President Barack Obama‘s signature healthcare law, vowing to do so swiftly after taking office.
But some congressional Republicans have voiced concerns over repealing the law too hastily, saying that doing so could effectively take health insurance away from the roughly 20 million people insured under the law.
The president on Sunday is expected to meet with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney to discuss the administration’s strategy for tackling ObamaCare.
The Senate early last month blew through a self-imposed Jan. 27 deadline for drafting repeal legislation. That legislation, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday, is expected to come after the recess next week.
Trump warned earlier this month that repealing and replacing the law may not be as quick a process as once thought, saying in an interview with Fox News that it might stretch into next year.
“It’s in the process, and maybe it will take till sometime into next year, but we are certainly going to be in the process,” he said. “It’s very complicated.”
Ryan asserted that replacement legislation will come this year, but told reporters on Feb. 7 that the process of actually implementing the new law would likely take longer.
“We’re going to be putting it in fairly soon. I think that, yes, I would like to say by the end of the year, at least the rudiments, but we should have something within the year and the following year,” he said.