Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and a close ally of the president, praised President Trump’s call for Obamacare reform, which he made in a post on Truth Social earlier Saturday. Graham said Republicans will not vote to extend health care tax credits under the Affordable Care Act.
“We will not extend this program for a year because that would be unfair to taxpayers. That would continue a health care system that is out of control,” Graham said on the Senate floor. “It will enrich health insurers even more. We won’t do that. We will replace this broken system with something better for the consumer to achieve the goal of lowering health care costs.”
“The terror of the public is not going to get us, as Republicans, to continue with this very bad health care bill,” Graham said, though he added that Republicans and the president are willing to talk to Democrats “about how we can get better value, how we can lower premiums.” [are] maybe.”
“But you have to change the basic principle of Obamacare,” he said.
The South Carolina Republican congratulated the president for “getting into the game today,” saying, “He has given us a way forward. I will listen to his advice and counsel.”
Graham said he spoke with the president this morning. Mr. Trump “would like to sit down and see if we can come up with a better solution,” he said.
“I know we can, but we won’t do it during a government shutdown,” he said.
Graham urged Democrats to “end this madness.”
“To my fellow Democrats, let’s open up the government, act like adults and see if we can address this problem in a better place,” he said. “We would never do that with a government shutdown.”