President Donald Trump castigated Obamacare on Tuesday at a meeting with Senate Republicans, saying that the health care law is "melting down."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) announced hours before the White House meeting that he would be delaying the vote on the Senate GOP health care bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, which was originally scheduled for this Thursday, until after the July 4 recess.
"[Obamacare is] melting down as we speak," Trump said. "Rates are going up. In fact, it's very interesting, [Republican Alaska Sen.] Lisa [Murkowski], that you're sitting next to me because in Alaska it was 206 percent [in premiums]. A 206 percent increase in Alaska and I used to use Arizona as the standard that was 116 percent, so it's really [a] meltdown and we're going to try and solve the problem."
Trump went on to say that there were either 52 out of 52 or 50 out of 52 Republican senators in the meeting, which he said was a "pretty good" percentage.
"So we're going to talk and we're going to see what we can do. We're getting very close, but for the country we have to have health care and it can't be Obamacare, which is melting down," Trump said. "The other side is saying all sorts of things before they even knew what the bill was. This will be great if we get it done, and if we don't get it done, it's just going to be something that we're not going to like and that's OK."
Trump then asked the media to leave the room after his opening remarks of the meeting.
"I'll ask the press to leave. I greatly appreciate you folks being here. We love you very much. You're very kind and very understanding, but we will now ask you to leave. Thank you very much everybody. Thank you," Trump concluded.