Trump’s Speech to Congress Page #6

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This effort will be guided by two core principles: Buy American and hire American.

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Tonight, I am also calling on this Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare ...

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... with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs and at the same time provide better health care.

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Mandating every American to buy government-approved health insurance was never the right solution for our country.

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The way to make health insurance available to everyone is to lower the cost of health insurance, and that is what we are going to do.

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Obamacare premiums nationwide have increased by double and triple digits. [Fact check: True, but cherry-picked.] As an example, Arizona went up 116 percent last year alone. Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky just said Obamacare is failing in his state, the state of Kentucky, and it’s unsustainable and collapsing.

One third of the counties have only one insurer, and they’re losing them fast, they are losing them so fast. They’re leaving. And many Americans have no choice at all. There’s no choice left.

Remember when you were told that you could keep your doctor and keep your plan? We now know that all of those promises have been totally broken. Obamacare is collapsing [Fact check: This is an exaggeration.], and we must act decisively to protect all Americans.

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Action is not a choice; it is a necessity. So I am calling on all Democrats and Republicans in Congress to work with us to save Americans from this imploding Obamacare disaster.

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Here are the principles that should guide Congress as we move to create a better health care system for all Americans.

First, we should ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage and that we have a stable transition for Americans currently enrolled in the health care exchanges.

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Secondly, we should help Americans purchase their own coverage, through the use of tax credits and expanded health savings accounts, but it must be the plan they want, not the plan forced on them by our government.

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Thirdly, we should give our state governors the resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid to make sure no one is left out.

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Fourth, we should implement legal reforms that protect patients and doctors from unnecessary costs that drive up the price of insurance and work to bring down the artificially high price of drugs and bring them down immediately.

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