Trump predicts GOP and Dems will agree on health care plan

Associated Press

PALM BEACH, Fla.

President Donald Trump is predicting that Democrats and Republicans will “eventually come together “on a new health care plan for the country.

Sending a Twitter post Tuesday from his Florida resort, Trump said “the very unfair and unpopular Individual Mandate has been terminated as part of our Tax Cut Bill, which essentially Repeals [over time] Obamacare.”

Much of former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act remains intact, however, and the sign-up period for the various options was carried out as normal this year.

Majority Republicans sought repeatedly to repeal the 2010 law this year, but couldn’t get it through the Senate.

Trump his wife, Melania, and their son, Barron, spent Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

no state dinners

Trump couldn’t stop talking about the red carpets, military parades and fancy dinners that were lavished upon him during state visits on his recent tour of Asia. “Magnificent,” he declared at one point on the trip.

But Trump has yet to reciprocate, making him the first president in almost a century to close his first year in office without welcoming a visiting counterpart to the U.S. with similar trappings.

Trump spoke dismissively of state dinners as a candidate, when he panned Obama’s decision to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping with a 2015 state visit. Such visits are an important diplomatic tool that includes a showy arrival ceremony and an elaborate dinner.

Last month it was Xi’s turn to literally roll out the red carpet. The Chinese leader poured on the pageantry as he welcomed Trump to Beijing on what was billed as a “state visit, plus.” Trump also made state visits to South Korea and Vietnam.