INDIANAPOLIS – Former Trump Administration HHS Secretary Tom Price admitted yesterday that the GOP’s year-long sabotage of the nation’s health care system, including provisions in the McConnell tax bill, will directly contribute to rising health care costs for millions of Americans.

Secretary Price’s comments at the World Health Care Congress in Washington on Tuesday made clear he believes that “Americans will pay more because the GOP weakened Obamacare,” the Washington Post reported. The comments were taken as evidence that Republicans can no longer run from their years spent trying to destabilize the health care markets.

Secretary Price’s message is all the more remarkable considering the messenger. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Price led the Trump Administration’s failed health care overhaul efforts last year and then spearheaded efforts to undermine the nation’s health care marketplaces. Before that, then-Congressman Price was one of the most vocal congressional Republican critics of the Affordable Care Act.

Those GOP sabotage efforts, combined with the chaos created by the McConnell tax bill that will cause 13 million Americans to go without health care coverage over the next ten years, will drive up premiums for everyone else. Rates will rise by as much as 34% in the next year thanks to the GOP, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in a recent report.

“Secretary Price was one of the most vocal and instrumental leaders of the GOP’s health care sabotage, and even he can no longer hide from the harm he’s caused Americans’ health care,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “Congressmen Rokita and Messer and Rep. Braun can continue pushing the same disastrous policies that’ll cause Hoosiers’ health care premiums to skyrocket by double-digits. But when Hoosiers try to figure out who’s responsible, they should simply listen to Secretary Price when he blames himself and his fellow Republicans.”

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