Trump on Health Care: ‘If I’m President, People Aren’t Going To Be Dying in the Streets’
TODD: “Another part of the debate had to do with health care. You’ve been hit on this. It is unclear to me though, you want more government — you want some sort of government system on health care.”
TRUMP: “Yeah.”
TODD: “You don’t like the system that’s in there now. That I understand.”
TRUMP: "Right, not single payer —"
TODD: “Describe the system you want.”
TRUMP: “Let me explain.”
TODD: “Okay.”
TRUMP: “First of all, what I do, I have a massive company, I have thousands and thousands of employees. And I have in many different states. You have artificial lines around each state. You know why? Because the insurance company taking care of the politicians so they don’t want to get rid of the lines. If you get rid of those lines you would have great private insurance and it would take care of most people, it would be an unbelievable thing. In addition to that you can have a savings — you know, you can do the savings situation where you would have health care savings accounts and it would be fantastic. There’s so many things you could do. The problem is the insurance companies don’t want to do these things and they don’t want to specifically get rid of the lines because they’d rather have a monopoly in New York, as an example, then let 50 companies come in and bid. Companies from Iowa, companies from New Hampshire.”
TODD: “But you’re going to have to structure a government program to do this.”
TRUMP: “No. Here’s what you do. You’re going to have a great system, but there will be people left that don’t have any money. And what I said last night is I don’t want people dying in the middle of the street. It’s not going to happen if I’m president. Okay. This isn’t single payer. This is using our hospitals to take care of people, you work them out, you reimburse the hospital because we will get —“
TODD: “Extend Medicaid?”
TRUMP: “You can do it through Medicaid. You can do it through some other way, but I’m just saying very simple — and this has nothing to do with single -- this has to do with humanity. This has to do with having a heart. We can have unbelievable insurance at a much lower cost. I don’t know if you know ObamaCare is going up 35, 45, 55 percent, the premiums are through the roof, in ‘17 it collapses. You’re going to have people — you’re going to have great plans, but you’re going to have people that won’t be able to afford even 10 cents. We cannot let them die on the streets, Chuck. And we’re going to take care of them. Whether it’s Medicaid, or, or, you’re going to work out some kind of a deal with hospitals to take care of these people, but if I'm president people aren't going to be dying in the streets.“
