Donald Trump just made the Republican push to repeal Obamacare a whole lot more complicated.

In an interview with the Washington Post Sunday, just days after Congress set the wheels in motion for scrapping the Affordable Care Act through a filibuster-proof process called budget reconciliation, Trump said he would soon announce his own healthcare replacement plan.

That alone wasn't all that surprising - it's more or less what Trump said last week in his first press conference as president elect.

But what was surprising as how Trump described his Obamacare replacement plan. According to Trump, his replacement plan would provide for "insurance for everybody" AKA universal coverage.

As he told the Post -

"We're going to have insurance for everybody... There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it. That's not going to happen with us. [People] can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better."

Trump has said a lot of shocking things in the two months since he was elected president - but those comments about his Obamacare replacement plan might be the most shocking.

"Insurance for everybody" or universal coverage is the worldwide gold standard for healthcare - and no country other than Switzerland has achieved it without single payer or socialized medicine.

I mean - Obamacare doesn't even provide for universal coverage.

So what's going on here?

Does Trump actually want to go beyond Obamacare?

Is he lying?

Or was this just a clever ploy to get Republicans to keep things as they are and scrap their politically disastrous plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act?

-Thom

(What do you think? Tell us here.)

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10:30pm... Should We Outlaw Billionaires? (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

Tuesday's Daily Stack 

Quote: "America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system." -- Walter Cronkite.

 

Hour One: How Long Will the GOP Allow Trump to be President?
- Neil McCabe, Breitbart News    

Article: "Betting website gives Trump 4-1 odds of being impeached within six months" by Brad Reed.

Article: "Trump vows 'insurance for everybody' in Obamacare replacement plan" by Robert Costa, Amy Goldstein.

 

Article: "Voter Purges Alter U.S. Political Map" (CrossCheck) by Greg Palast.

Article: "The Erosion Of Truth As Trump Prepares To Take Office" by Peter Lance.

Article: "Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's frustration as FBI sat on Donald Trump Russia file for months" by Kim Sengupta.

Article: "'Liar' chanted at GOP rep during MLK Day speech" by Max Greenwood.

Law: "Civil Rights Act of 1964" by Wikipedia.

Law: "Voting Rights Act of 1965".

Article: "New Deal" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Donald Trump had nothing to do with our new US jobs, Fiat Chrysler reveals" by Rachael Revesz.

Article: "Essay: THE FUTURISTS: Looking Toward A.D. 2000", Feb. 25, 1966.

Book: "The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America--and What We Can Do to Stop It" by Thom Hartmann

Article: "Third Way" by Wikipedia.

 

Article: "Cory Booker Joins Senate Republicans to Kill Measure to Import Cheaper Medicine From Canada" by Zaid Jilani, David Dayen.

Hour Two: GOP Obamacare Strategy? Repeal and Run...
- Steve Beaman, Society to Advance Financial Education  

Article: "The GOP's strategy for Obamacare? Repeal and run." by Elizabeth Warren.

Article: "Health Law's Repeal Could Raise Costs and Number of Uninsured, New Report Says" by Robert Pear.

 

Book: "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany" by William L. Shirer.

Article: "Trump's comparison of CIA to Nazis is 'repugnant'" by Graham Lanktree.

Article: "Preamble to the Constitution of the United States".

Site: Social Security Works.

Article: "Declaration of Independence".

Book: The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War by Stephen Kinzer.

Book: Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition by Stansfield Turner.

Article: "Stansfield Turner" by Wikipedia.

 

Talk Media News Segment:
- Patrick Gavin 

Article: "World Economic Forum: 'Elites' descend on Davos".

Article: "First on CNN: Trump's Cabinet pick invested in company, then introduced a bill to help it" by Manu Raju.

Article: "Trump Team Concerned About Mnuchin" by Taegan Goddard.

Tweet: "I am looking forward to my hearing." by Andy Puzder.

Article: "Sources: Trump labor pick Andrew Puzder has voiced second thoughts about nomination" by John King.

Article: "Ex-wife of Labor nominee leveled abuse claims on 'Oprah'" by Marianne Levine.

Article: "At hearing, DeVos to lay out school-choice vision" by Melissa Nann Burke.

Article: "370 Cities Across The World Just Announced Trump Inauguration Protests" by Colin Taylor.

Event: January 21 2017: "Sister Marches - solidarity events around the world inspired by the Women's March on Washington".

Article: "Curveball (informant)" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Ahmed Chalabi" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Protests against the Iraq War" by Wikipedia.

Article: "CBS CEO: "...may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS"" by Lee Fang.

Article: "The Trump Story the Media Dare Not Utter" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Dems 'outraged' with Comey after House briefing" by Mike Lillis, Katie Bo Williams.

Article: "Measuring Donald Trump's Mammoth Advantage in Free Media" by Nicholas Confessore and Karen Yourish.

Quote: "I don't care what they say about me, just make sure they spell my name right!" - attributed to P.T. Barnum and others.

Article: "Betsy DeVos confirmation hearing for education secretary: the key points" by Sabrina Siddiqui.

Article: "Child labour laws need loosening says group funded by Trump's education secretary" by Graham Lanktree, November 24, 2016.

Book: Thom Hartmann's Complete Guide to ADHD by Thom Hartmann

Law: "Logan Act", 1799 - forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments having a dispute with the U.S.

Article: "Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton's Missing Emails" by Ashley Parker, David E. Sanger.

Article: "Surprisingly, Trump inauguration shapes up to be a relatively low-key affair" by John Wagner, Karen Tumulty.

Article: "'Shocking': North Dakota Republicans Want to Legalize Running Over Protesters" by Nadia Prupis.

Article: "First Amendment to the United States Constitution"

Article: "Donald Trump is committed to globalisation, Davos told" by Gillian Tett.

Article: "Just Eight Men Own Same Wealth as Half of Humanity: Report" by Nika Knight.

Article: "Jeremy Corbyn calls for maximum wage law" by Jessica Elgot.

Law: "STOCK Act" (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act), April 4, 2012.

Wednesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET 

 

I'll be talking to Lily Eskelsen Garcia of the National Education Association about Trump's secretary of education pick Betsy DeVos, and to Drew Spencer Penrose of Fair Vote about Ranked Choice Voting & Voting Reform. I'll also be debating Jamie Weinstein.

 

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

 

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"

 

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...