Trump repeats false claim about Obamacare, alleges ex-Prez Obama earned $40 mn in 'royalties'

In his bid to abolish Obamacare, US President Donald Trump promoted a false claim that former President Barack Obama has earned $40 million in “royalties" linked to the initiative. Trump shared the false claim on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Sunday, with the caption “WOW!”

According to the fiction claim, Obama has been receiving royalty payments for the use of his name to refer to the Affordable Care Act, which he signed into law back in 2010.

However, the claim has been repeatedly debunked ever since it was propagated. In 2017, the false assertion was featured on America’s Last Line of Defence, a satirical website that is notorious for producing fake and provocative news.

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The new version of the claim, shared by Trump on Sunday, fooled many of his supporters in February, when it was posted on Facebook by America’s Last Line of Defence, and on the Dunning-Kruger-Times, a satirical site run by the same man, Christopher Blair, the Maine-based “godfather of fake news”.

In the Sunday post, Trump re-shared an image of Obama and the text: “BREAKING: DOGE halted a yearly payment of $2.5 million to Barack Obama for ‘royalties linked to Obamacare.’ He’s been collecting it since 2010, for a total of $40 million in taxpayer dollars.”

While the president has been spending much of the weekend golfing, he also used his social media platform to deride Obamacare. Trump’s wrath against the initiative is coming at a time when Senate Democrats have been pushing to extend tax credits for Americans who rely on the Affordable Care Act.

Earlier, Trump shared another post suggesting that the Senate Republicans should abolish Obamacare. He instead proposed to reroute federal health care spending directly to individual Americans. “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE, and have money left over,” the American leader said in a statement.

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“In other words, take from the BIG, BAD Insurance Companies, give it to the people, and terminate, per Dollar spent, the worst Healthcare anywhere in the World, ObamaCare,” he added. Trump’s post marked his latest push to revive his long-running campaign against the Act.

Trump and Republicans have been criticising the program for the longest time, especially amid the US government shutdown. The GOP argues that the programme drives up costs and enriches insurance companies at taxpayers’ expense. Interestingly, Trump has spent much of his first term trying to repeal the law. Meanwhile, the White House has yet to comment on whether the president was aware that the report he shared was fictional.