Trump doubles down on pledge to eliminate Obamacare, even as the pandemic rages, calling it 'lousy healthcare'

• Trump pledged to get rid of Obamacare entirely on Wednesday, the last day the administration could amend its support for a GOP lawsuit before the Supreme Court.
• "Obamacare, we run it really well ... but running it great, it's still lousy health care," Trump told reporters.
• Up to 20 million people could lose their health coverage if the high court ruled in the White House's favor.
• Trump has not yet offered a concrete health plan, nor fully explained how he would keep existing protections for people with health conditions.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Trump vowed again to get rid of Obamacare on Wednesday, insisting it had failed to live up to its promises and calling it a "disaster."

"We want to terminate healthcare under Obamacare," Trump told reporters, according to The Washington Post. "Obamacare, we run it really well ... but running it great, it's still lousy healthcare."

"Obamacare is a disaster, but we've made it barely acceptable," the president said.

Wednesday was the last day for the administration to revise its position before legal arguments on the law's constitutionality at the Supreme Court.

Trump supports tossing out the entire law. But he has promised to include some of the Affordable Care Act's popular provisions, like its protection of pre-existing conditions, in a new GOP healthcare plan.

Read more: Traders are reaping unusually large profits from earnings-related stock trades. Here are 15 picks for the remainder of the season.

Trump, though, still hasn't offered a concrete proposal — and if a GOP-led lawsuit succeeded at the Supreme Court, it would scrap those protections. The president previously struggled to explain how he would protect insurance for people with pre-existing conditions at a Fox News town hall in early March.

Democrats quickly blasted Trump's remarks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said undoing the law would hurt millions during the coronavirus outbreak.

"The President's insistence on doubling down on his senseless and cruel argument in court to destroy the ACA and every last one of its benefits and protections is unconscionable, particularly in the middle of a pandemic," Pelosi said in a press release.

As the pandemic raged over the past two months, over 30 million Americans filed for unemployment and caused many to go without health insurance. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation estimated between 25 million and 43 million people could lose their employer-sponsored health insurance.

The Trump administration has tried weakening the law since it failed to repeal and replace it in 2017, such as by introducing short-term insurance plans that don't cover people with pre-existing conditions or many types of pricey hospital care.

Eliminating the law could yank health coverage from up to 20 million people, according to a projection from the Urban Institute.

Read the original article on Business Insider