Trump Claims New Health Plans That Aren’t For Sale Yet Are Doing ‘Record Business,’ Says ObamaCare ‘Is A Disaster’

President Trump on Thursday claimed that his administration’s new health insurance plans, created as an alternative to ObamaCare plans, are doing “record business” and “incredible” sales — even though the plans are not yet available to purchase.

Speaking at a roundtable in Iowa, where he was joined by state and local officials, Trump said Department of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was at the event, “has come up with incredible healthcare plans.”

“[Secretary of Labor] Alex Acosta has come up with incredible health care plans through the Department of Labor, association plans, where you associate, where you have groups, and you go out and get tremendous health care at a very small cost,” Trump said. “It is across state lines. You can compete all over the country, they compete, they want to get it.”

“And Alex, I hear it’s like record business that they’re doing,” Trump continued. “We just opened about two months ago and I’m hearing that the numbers are incredible, the numbers of people that are getting really, really good health care, instead of Obamacare, which is a disaster.”

The problem with Trump’s claim is that association health plans won’t even be available until September 1 at the earliest. The White House announced the creation of such plans on June 19.




The Hill notes:

The plans, which allow small businesses and other groups to band together to buy health insurance, are part of a broader administration effort to offer slimmed-down, cheaper plans as an alternative to ObamaCare plans.

Trump did not cite any numbers regarding the health plans at Thursday’s event, while Acosta said he’d heard Iowa businesses are “putting those associations together.” The Labor Department has said associations cannot establish association health plans until Sept. 1.

During roundtable event in Duluth, Trump tries to explain association health care plans: "We just got association health care approved. So it will be incredible. You associate as companies & as people, you will get great healthcare at a much lower price than you have been paying" pic.twitter.com/ek8AvzNVe0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 20, 2018