President Trump Touts Stock Market Gains, Decries Payments For Insurers

WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump started off the week by suggesting Monday morning that he might pull back support for insurers offering plans under Obamacare and denying the that the White House is in a state of chaos.

"If ObamaCare is hurting people, & it is, why shouldn't it hurt the insurance companies & why should Congress not be paying what public pays?" he said in a tweet. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The tweet refers to payments made by the administration to health insurers as a part of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. There's significant controversy over these payments, which are intended to help insurers stay in the markets and cover the costs of particularly expensive patients. Republicans have argued that the money for these payments was never properly appropriated, and the Obama administration faced a lawsuit for paying them out.

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Had Republicans successfully repealed Obamacare, the question might be moot. But with the GOP's most recent efforts at repeal defeated on the Senate floor, the Trump administration now has to decide what to do with Obamacare. Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Trump will decide what to do about the payments this week.

“He’s going to make that decision this week. And that’s a decision that only he can make,” she said on “Fox News Sunday.”

After pledging to repeal the law, the president appears reluctant to play any part in its success; undermining the law without a proper replacement, though, could be a damaging move for Republicans.

The White House has also faced criticisms that it's in a state of disarray, following a week of PR messes, legislative failures and staff shakeups. But Trump denies that there's anything wrong.

"Highest Stock Market EVER, best economic numbers in years, unemployment lowest in 17 years, wages raising, border secure, S.C.: No WH chaos!" he wrote Monday.

Trump is correct that the stock market has made impressive gains in recent months, though the extent to which any president deserves credit for such indices is a matter of much debate. The unemployment figures also remain a sign of strength in the economy, though Trump himself called these numbers "phony" before the election.

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