From the tenth debate Texas CNN transcript:
RUBIO: The individual mandate. He said he likes the individual mandate portion of it, which I don’t believe that should be part of it. That should not remain there. I think here’s what we need to replace it with.
We need to repeal Obamacare completely and replace it with a system that puts Americans in charge of their health care money again. If your employer wants to buy health insurance for you, they can continue to do so from any company in America they want to buy it from.
Otherwise, your employers can provide you health care money, tax- free, not treated as income, and you can use that money only for health care, but you can use it to fund health care any way you want, fully fund a health savings account, the combination of a health savings account or a private plan from any company in any state in the country.
And if you don’t have that, then you will have a refundable tax credit that provides you health care money to buy your own health care coverage. And that, I think, is a much better approach than Obamacare, which, by the way, isn’t just bad for health care, it’s bad for our economy. It is a health care law that is basically forcing companies to lay people off, cut people’s hours, move people to part-time. It is not just a bad health care law, it is a job-killing law. And I will repeal it as president and we will replace it with something substantially better for all Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
BASH: Mr. Trump, Senator Rubio just said that you support the individual mandate. Would you respond?
TRUMP: I just want to say, I agree with that 100 percent, except pre-existing conditions, I would absolutely get rid of Obamacare. We’re going to have something much better, but pre-existing conditions, when I’m referring to that, and I was referring to that very strongly on the show with Anderson Cooper, I want to keep pre-existing conditions.
I think we need it. I think it’s a modern age. And I think we have to have it.
The whole purpose of "Obamacare" was to force insurance companies to cover everyone and specifically to cover pre-existing conditions. But that will not work economically unless everyone in the United States is forced onto the insurance roles. So how is Trump going to make sure that people who want to buy insurance after they come down with some prohibitively expensive chronic condition can get it unless he somehow either forces everyone into the pool or gives huge subsidies to Insurance Companies?
Just askin.
“TRUMP: I just want to say, I agree with that 100 percent, except pre-existing conditions,...I want to keep pre-existing conditions.”
But Mr. Trump, what if people want to be cured?
He’d be much more palatable if he could relay his thoughts using coherent sentences.
“TRUMP:...I think we need it [pre-existing condition coverage]. I think it’s a modern age. And I think we have to have it.”
So apparently those old dead white Founding Fathers had it wrong when they purposely limited the powers of the Federal Government to those expressly laid out in the Constitution. How is Trump different than Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton in his thinking that the Constitution can be ignored if it would bar him from doing things he thinks should be done? Why would Trump stop treading on the Constitution for any other thing he wants once he is in office?
The specific issue of universal healthcare aside, his Progressive mindset should be an absolute disqualifier for a Conservative.