Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said at Wednesday's Democratic debate that he was a "fan of Obamacare," the health care law he called a "disgrace" in 2010.
Making his first debate appearance since entering the 2020 race, Bloomberg denied former vice president Joe Biden's charge that he didn't support the landmark law signed by President Barack Obama.
"I am a fan of Obamacare," Bloomberg said, as Biden protested.
Bloomberg said he lobbied other mayors to support the law in 2009 but felt it didn't go far enough.
"The first thing we've got to do is get the White House and bring back those things that were left, and then find the ways to expand it. Another public option, having some rules about capping charges," Bloomberg said. "All of those things."
Biden fired back that Bloomberg called the law a "disgrace."
"Look it up," Biden told viewers. "Check it out."
Bloomberg did lambast the law during remarks in 2010 at the Dartmouth Presidential Lecture, CNN reported.
"We passed a health care bill that does absolutely nothing to fix the big health care problems in this country. It is just a disgrace," the former mayor said. "The President, in all fairness, started out by pointing out what the big problems were, but then turned it over to Congress, which didn't pay any attention to any of those big problems and just created another program that's going to cost a lot of money."
"They say they've insured or provided coverage for another 45 million people," Bloomberg added. "Except there's no doctors for 45 million more people and unless they fix immigration and let people who come here for medical education stay here, those people are just going to do the same thing."
Some of Obama's former aides have criticized Bloomberg's embrace of Obama in campaign advertisements.