Joe Biden’s campaign seized on Donald Trump’s call to overturn Obamacare, using it to cast the Republican as a threat to Americans’ health benefits ahead of a likely rematch with the president.
“The former president reminded us that he is hellbent on destroying the Affordable Care Act,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday on a call organized by Biden’s campaign. “When he says he’s going after our health care, believe him because he’s done it before.”
Pelosi was joined by another campaign surrogate, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, as the two lambasted Trump for his latest threat to repeal Obamacare if he wins a second term.
“Health care is a great opportunity to compare the best of Biden to the worst of Trump,” Cooper said, adding the Republican standard-bearer is “trying to destroy it, with no serious alternative.”
The Biden campaign’s attack on Trump’s health care policy comes as it tries to change the dynamic of the 2024 election from a referendum on the president’s leadership to a choice between Biden and Trump, reminding voters why they rejected the former president in 2020.
Trump has emerged from a crowded primary field as the clear frontrunner, allowing Biden’s team to take more direct aim at him.
Cooper said the choice for American voters could not be more stark, saying the campaign was “not just attacking Trump,” but seeking to tout Biden’s “many accomplishments.”
Trump last week said on his Truth Social platform that Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, was too expensive for Americans and offered poor health care choices.
“I’m seriously looking at alternatives,” Trump said, assailing his own party for not undoing the law when he was president. “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!”
Biden and his team are increasingly shifting their focus toward Trump. Recent polls have shown Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head match-up, though the president’s camp has dismissed those surveys insisting voters will rally behind the incumbent in a two-person contest.
Trump leads Biden in six of seven swing states and on key issues, including the economy and foreign policy, a November Bloomberg News and Morning Consult poll found.
Repealing the law is a risky gambit for Republicans, who repeatedly failed in their bids to do so, even when they held control of both chambers of Congress.
Polls show the 2010 law is broadly popular with the American public. Almost six in 10 adults had a very or somewhat favorable view of the law, according to a KFF Health Tracking Poll released in May 2023. Voters favor Democrats over Republicans more when it comes to health care by a margin of 45% of 22%, a September NBC News poll found.
Biden has also focused his attacks on Trump in recent weeks, singling him out earlier this month for comparing his political enemies to “vermin.” The president said the Republican frontrunner was evoking language “heard in Nazi Germany.”
Biden on Monday also hit Trump for vowing to try again to undo Obamacare.
“My predecessor once again, god love him, called for cuts that could rip away health insurance for tens of millions of Americans” Biden said. “They just don’t give up.”