President-elect Donald Trump touched on several health care topics during a wide-ranging interview with NBC's “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday.
During the interview with host Kristen Welker, Trump offered little specifics about his long-promised overhaul of the Affordable Care Act.
He also said he didn’t think access to abortion pills would change, that he still supported insurance paying for fertility treatments, and that he would have his choice for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., look into concerns about childhood vaccines.
Reprising a line from his Sept. 10 debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump again said he had “concepts” of a plan to substitute for the Affordable Care Act, which he called “lousy health care.”
“It’s very expensive health care for the people,” he said. “It’s also expensive for the country, but for the people. It’s lousy health care.”
He added a promise that any Trump version would maintain insurance protections for Americans with preexisting health conditions. He did not explain how such a design would be different from the status quo or how he could deliver on his desire for “better health care for less money.”
“We have the biggest health care companies looking at it,” he said. “We have doctors who are always looking. Because Obamacare stinks. It’s lousy.
“There are better answers. If we come up with a better answer, I would present that answer to Democrats and to everybody else and I’d do something about it. But until we have that or until they can approve it — but we’re not going to go through the big deal.”
Welker brought up autism in the context of a conversation about Kennedy’s skepticism of vaccines.
Even though studies have repeatedly shown that no link between childhood vaccines and autism exists, Trump said he shares some of Kennedy’s concerns about the safety of some childhood vaccines.
“I think somebody has to find out,” Trump said, adding that he may ask Kennedy to look into it.
Trump continued his inconsistencies and said he would “probably” not move to restrict access to the abortion pills, but acknowledged that "things change."
Pressed by Welker on whether he would commit to that position, Trump replied, “Well, I commit. I mean, are ─ things do ─ things change. I think they change.”
“I’ll probably stay with exactly what I’ve been saying for the last two years. And the answer is no,” Trump. “Things do change. But I don’t think it’s going to change at all.”
Use of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol now account for a majority of pregnancy terminations, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.
During the campaign, Trump promised free in vitro fertilization, either through the government or mandates with insurance companies. However, Welker mentioned that she has been “hearing from Republican senators, some of them, who say they’re not going to support that plan.”
Trump replied, “We want … ideally the insurance companies to pay for it.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
