Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is also running for president in 2024, was mocked on social media on Sunday after he failed to give a straight-forward answer on his health care plan during an interview.
Questions have recently been raised on what the American health care system will look like if a Republican is elected president in 2024. The GOP has long criticized the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, that former President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010. The program makes health care affordable for roughly 40 million Americans. According to latest polling by KFF Health Tracking in May 2023, 59 percent of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion about the policy when it is described as the "Affordable Care Act or Obamacare," while 40 percent view the act unfavorably.
Last week, former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said he would get rid of Obamacare if he's reelected—a promise that he has made ever since his first bid for the White House in 2016. In 2017, a Senate vote to repeal and replace the legislation failed and in 2021, the Supreme Court rejected a Republican appeal backed by the then-Trump administration to invalidate Obamacare.
During an interview appearance on NBC News' Meet the Press on Sunday, host Kristen Welker asked DeSantis whether he would repeal and replace Obamacare as Trump threatened to do if he wins the presidency next year.
"Well, you're right, President Trump promised that he would repeal and replace Obamacare and he didn't do it. And that was a promise he made a lot of times—," DeSantis responded.
Welker then interrupted, "What would you do governor? What would you do?"
DeSantis continued to shift attention onto his Republican opponent, saying, "Well, but I think it's important to point out, he's running on a lot of the things he campaigned on in 2016 and didn't deliver it on..."
When pressed again about his own initiatives, DeSantis said, "Here's what I will do. What I think they're gonna need to do is have a plan that will supersede Obamacare, that will lower prices for people so that they can afford health care, while also making sure people with preexisting conditions are protected. And we're going to look at the big institutions that are causing prices to be high..."
Newsweek reached out to DeSantis' campaign via email for comment.
Meanwhile, social media users mocked DeSantis' inability to clearly explain the details of his health care plan.
Journalist Aaron Rupar shared a clip of DeSantis' interview on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: "Grilled about if he would replace Obamacare, DeSantis says 'you will have a totally different health care plan' without offering any specifics. Sounds legit!"
Speaking to vaccine skepticism, which some conservatives have been vocal about with the COVID-19 vaccine, attorney David Lurie replied to Rupar's post, "For one thing, kids will get the benefit of exposure to polio and other life threatening preventable diseases, without being forced to get those pesky vaccinations."
Rupar also shared another clip from DeSantis' Sunday interview where the governor gave a vague timeline for his health care plan.
"Well, we're gonna be working on, probably in the spring, we'll roll out a big proposal. I've got a lot of input that's been coming in from a lot of good people around the country. But we will definitely be addressing insurance, we will definitely be addressing big government, and we will be addressing big pharma...," DeSantis told Welker.
Opinion journalist Catherine Rampell said sarcastically of the clip on X, "Sounds credible."
Others poked fun at how similar DeSantis sounded to Trump during his presidency when he would keep delaying the roll out of a new health care plan that he promised voters. In September 2020, Trump said that he would lay out his health care plan in the next "two weeks," but never did.
"Translation: @RonDeSantis much like trump has no health care plan. Spring is synonymous with in 2 weeks," X user @TheBondGuy2 wrote, while user Bradley Moss commented: "'The spring' is the new 'in two weeks.'"
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