President Trump Says He's 'Proud' Of Health Care Bill

When the House Republicans released an Obamacare replacement plan, most reports attributed the bill to GOP officials in Congress. But a series of statements from the White House Tuesday made it clear that President Trump is also claiming at least partial ownership of the bill, and he said he is "proud" of what it proposes.

"Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation," the president said in a Tweet Tuesday morning. "ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster - is imploding fast!"

In a press briefing later, Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared of the bill, "This is the plan the president ran on." (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The bill has yet to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office, which means lawmakers and the public do not have a good sense of how much the bill will cost or what its downstream effects could be.

Pool reporter Zeke Miller quoted the president expressing strong confidence in the bill at a meeting of House lawmakers on Tuesday.

"This will be a plan where you can choose your doctor," Trump said. "This will be a plan where you can choose your plan."

He continued: "I think it's going to go very quickly. I hope it's going to go very quickly."

But the bill is already facing its fair share of opposition. Among its critics are Democrats, Freedom Caucus Republicans, the American Hospital Association, the AARP, the conservative Heritage Foundation and the conservative Cato Institute.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, called the new bill "dead on arrival."

Tying his administration so closely to a bill that is quickly facing criticism from all sides of the political spectrum may prove to be tactical mistake.

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