Former President Barack Obama revealed on Thursday that he advised President-Elect Donald Trump to "just change the name" of Obamacare and "claim that you made those wonderful changes."
Obama had been participating in a question and answer session with DNC Chair Tom Perez, to whom the 44th president explained he never sought "pride of authorship" on health care.
I said to the incoming president, 'Just change the name and claim that you made these wonderful changes and I would be like, "You go."' Because I didn't have pride of authorship, I just wanted people to have health care.
Obama continued, saying he warned the incoming president, who had campaigned on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, that he "couldn't do it despite controlling all branches of government in Washington. They couldn't do it because we had actually thought it through and it's a hard thing to do."
The former president explained that the goal of making sure every American has access to quality health care was something that "every president since Teddy Roosevelt had failed to do."
By a 5-4 vote in 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the ACA's individual mandate, which requires all Americans to enroll in health care coverage or pay a fine, was constitutional due to the power of Congress to levy taxes. Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, was the deciding vote in favor of saving the law.
