Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the South Texas International Airport, Nov. 19, 2023, in Edinburg, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Former President Donald Trump said he is “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which could cost over 7 million Midwesterners their health insurance.

“The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare. I’m seriously looking at alternatives,” Trump wrote last Saturday on his Truth Social platform. “We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!”

While he was president in 2017, Trump attempted to fully repeal the landmark health care reform, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010. Trump tasked U.S. Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL), John Barrasso (R-WY) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to pen new health care legislation, which they subsequently abandoned just months later. Trump also tried to repeal the ACA in 2020 when his administration submitted an 82-page brief to the Supreme Court urging them to repeal the program.

In response to Trump’s post, the Biden administration released a statement condemning Trump’s words, saying his plan would strip millions of Americans of health care coverage.

“Donald Trump is campaigning on a threat to rip away health care from millions of Americans, so we’re going to use every tool in our arsenal to make sure the American people know that lives are literally on the line next November,” said Biden’s communications director Michael Tyler.

According to statistics from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, nearly every state in the U.S. have seen their health care uninsurance rates decrease since ACA’s implementation. Several states in the Midwest had rates below 10% by 2021, including Illinois (7%), Ohio (6.5%), Michigan (5%) and Wisconsin (5.4%). More than 40 million people are enrolled Medicaid expansion coverage because of provisions put in place by the ACA. Economic Policy Institute estimates that more than 7 million people in the Midwest would lose health insurance coverage if the ACA were repealed.

Trump will likely find support in Congress for another ACA repeal as many of his supporters are still in office. Recently, U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) have made public statements calling for a full repeal of ACA. However, many GOP members rolled back anti-ACA rhetoric, and some lawmakers like Scott refuse to even acknowledge questions about it.