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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a break in a Fox News town hall with Harris Faulkner at The Reid Barn, Oct. 15, 2024, in Cumming, Georgia. (AP) Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a break in a Fox News town hall with Harris Faulkner at The Reid Barn, Oct. 15, 2024, in Cumming, Georgia. (AP)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a break in a Fox News town hall with Harris Faulkner at The Reid Barn, Oct. 15, 2024, in Cumming, Georgia. (AP)

Marta Campabadal Graus
By Marta Campabadal Graus October 24, 2024
Samantha Putterman
By Samantha Putterman October 24, 2024

Ad Watch: Does Donald Trump want to terminate the Affordable Care Act, as Harris campaign ad claims?

If Your Time is short

  • The Harris’ campaign ad uses a 2017 video in which former President Donald Trump said his administration planned on "repealing and replacing Obamacare." 

  • Trump has repeatedly said he wants to replace the Affordable Care Act. But lately, he’s said he wants to fix it and introduce his own plan, though he’s offered no specifics. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is highlighting the importance of the Affordable Care Act for Latinos and claiming that former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, wants to take it away.

In the Sept. 27 online ad, a man identified as Dr. Cesar Quintana, says: "I’ve dedicated my life to keeping people healthy, here in my office and throughout the community where I help others access the health care they need. That’s what the Affordable Care Act does. It helps our families access lifesaving health care. Donald Trump would take that away."

The ad then shows a short clip of Trump saying "repealing and replacing Obamacare."  Quintana then says that would leave millions "without access to health insurance."

The ad, which is also in Spanish, is partially correct. Trump opposes the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, enacted in 2010 during former President Barack Obama’s administration. As president, Trump cut enrollment assistance and supported repeal-and-replace efforts in Congress. But his stance on terminating the law has shifted.

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Here are the facts. 

Trump’s stance on the ACA in 2016 campaign and as president
 

In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to repeal the law. The Harris ad clip of Trump saying "repealing and replacing Obamacare" is from Jan. 26, 2017, when Trump discussed his administration’s plans at a congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia.

Trump said that they would have an "ambitious legislative agenda" and that the first step would be eliminating the Affordable Care Act. He called it "a disaster," and said he wanted to save families from what he described as a "catastrophic rise in premiums and debilitating loss of choice and just about everything else."

Trump supported congressional Republican repeal-and-replace efforts, but they  ultimately failed. One example is the American Health Care Act, a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act subsidies and regulations that the House passed in May 2017, but failed to pass in the Senate. In June 2020, Trump’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the law, but the court dismissed the case.

Trump also cut funding for the law’s marketing, outreach and enrollment assistance. He expanded access to short-term, limited-coverage plans that Democrats call "junk insurance," arguing they limit care and can lead to surprise medical bills.

During Trump’s presidency, Affordable Care Act enrollment declined by more than 2 million and the number of uninsured Americans rose by 2.3 million. 

Trump’s ACA position during his 2024 presidential campaign 
 

During his 2024 campaign, Trump has gone back and forth on his position on the Affordable Care Act. At times, he’s said that he wants to replace the law with an "alternative." But he’s also said he wouldn’t terminate it.

In March, he wrote on Truth Social that he is "not running to terminate" the health care law, but wants to make it "better" and "less expensive." On Sept. 10, during the presidential debate with Harris, Trump said that he has "concepts of a plan" to replace the law. He said he would "run it as good as it can be run" before instituting his own plan. Trump still hasn’t specified his plan.

Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign national press secretary, told PolitiFact Trump "will implement real solutions to make America healthy again without relying on Big Insurance and Big Pharma," but she did not specify how.  

Featured Fact-check

PolitiFact contacted the Harris campaign for evidence that Trump wants to end the Affordable Care Act. It referred us to a Harris campaign document, that the campaign claims shows how Trump is aligned with Project 2025.

Project 2025 is a 900-page handbook of policy proposals for the next Republican administration created by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025.

Project 2025 calls for changing the Affordable Care Act. For example, it recommends that the Food and Drug Administration reverse its 2000 approval of mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug regimen for a medication abortion. The document also says some forms of emergency contraception — particularly Ella, a pill that women can take within five days of unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy — should be excluded from no-cost coverage. It also calls for separating the subsidized law exchange market from the nonsubsidized insurance market. But it does not call for ending the law. 

Trump’s campaign platform doesn’t mention the Affordable Care Act. 

Our ruling
 

A Harris campaign ad said that Trump wants to take away the Affordable Care Act.

Trump has given mixed and incomplete information about his plan for the law. He’s said that he wants to end it, that he wants to improve it and that he has "concepts of a plan" to replace the law. But he hasn’t given more details.

As president, Trump supported multiple efforts to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

We rate the claim Half True.

PolitiFact Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson and KFF Health News Senior Correspondent Julie Appleby contributed to this report.

Our Sources

Youtube, Stop Him | Harris-Walz 2024, Sept. 27, 2024

PolitiFact, What would a second Donald Trump presidency look like for health care? We explore, Jan. 16, 2024

PolitiFact, Ask PolitiFact: Fact-checking Harris, Trump’s AARP interviews, Oct. 6, 2024

PolitiFact, Vance misleads: Trump tried to take the Affordable Care Act down, not build upon it, Sept. 20, 2024

PolitiFact, Promise Tracker - Repeal Obamacare, Jul. 15, 2020

PolitiFact, Mostly True: Trump reversed the ACA's LGBTQ+ health care protections. But lawsuits muddied impact, Sept. 9, 2024

KFF, The "Concept of a Plan" President Trump Proposed to Replace the ACA, Sept. 11, 2024

Republican National Convention, 2024 GOP PLATFORM MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!, accessed Oct. 16, 2024

Univision, La campaña de Kamala Harris arremete contra los "conceptos del plan salud" de Donald Trump, Oct. 1, 2024

NBC News, Donald Trump misrepresents his push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Sept. 16, 2024

The ACA Times, What Would a Trump Presidency Mean for the ACA?, Sept. 18, 2024

C-SPAN, President Trump Remarks at Congressional Republican Retreat, Jan. 26, 2017

PolitiFact, Does Trump want to repeal the ACA, as Biden says? Tracking his changing stance over the years, Jun. 3, 2024

PolitiFact, Fact-checking Kamala Harris’ Univision town hall with Latino voters, Oct. 14, 2024

Email interview with Fabiola Rodriguez, Harris’ campaign spokesperson, Oct. 14, 2024

Email interview with Taylor Rogers, Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Oct. 16, 2024

ABC News, Fact-checking Trump's 'repeal and replace' Obamacare timeline, Mar. 24, 2017

NBC, Trump unveils new health plan; Democrats call it 'junk insurance', Jun. 19, 2018

Congress.Gov, H.R.1628 - American Health Care Act of 2017, accessed on Oct. 23, 2024

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Ad Watch: Does Donald Trump want to terminate the Affordable Care Act, as Harris campaign ad claims?

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