Pelosi sounds warning over Trump’s attacks on ObamaCare

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday sounded the alarm on former President Trump’s attacks on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as she made the case that the 2024 presidential election ought to be about more than Trump’s criminal indictments.

In an interview on MSNBC on Tuesday, Pelosi took aim at Trump’s recent statement that “ObamaCare sucks” and his claim to replace it with something better, saying Democrats should emphasize to voters that their health care could be at risk.

“He’s a constant liar, but when he lies, sometimes you have to listen to him,” Pelosi said. “For example, he lied and said, ‘ObamaCare sucks’ — I mean, to use his kind of language — ‘ObamaCare sucks.’ Listen to when he says that. Of course it doesn’t. The Affordable Care Act cures. So in the campaign, people have to understand that their well-being is on the ballot.”

Pelosi touted some now-popular provisions of the ACA, or “ObamaCare,” which has become increasingly popular in recent years. Republicans, who once embraced the “repeal and replace” strategy for ObamaCare, have largely given up that battle after several failed attempts.

Pelosi stressed Democrats have the power to make health care and “freedom to choose” the central issue, rather than ceding the central campaign issue to Trump’s claims that the Department of Justice is mobilized against him.

“Make sure people understand: While they may want to vote for a convicted felon, do they want to vote for somebody who’s going to take away your health care, especially if you have a preexisting condition or a child with one? Do you want to make sure that your daughter, wife, sister, someone in your family has no freedom to make a judgement about her reproductive health?” Pelosi said, also mentioning Democrats’ popular policy views on background checks for guns and climate change.

“In 2018, people said to me, ‘Weren’t you lucky that health care became the central issue of the campaign, and that’s how you won 40 seats and win the House.’ I said, ‘No, we weren’t lucky. We made our own luck. So let’s get on with it. Let’s forget about him and his dysfunction. And understand that we have to get out our vote.”