Trump: Australian health care system better than US

SHARE Trump: Australian health care system better than US
trumpturnbull.jpg

President Donald Trump meets Thursday with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull aboard the USS Intrepid, a decommissioned aircraft carrier docked in the Hudson River in New York. | AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

BRANCHBURG, N.J.  — President Donald Trump says Australia has a better health care system than the U.S., a comment that’s attracting attention because Australia offers universal health care, which Republicans oppose.

In his meeting Thursday with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump said the existing U.S. system was failing: “I shouldn’t say this to a great gentleman and my friend from Australia because you have better health care than we do.”

He added that Americans will have a “great” system soon, referring to the just-passed House GOP health care bill.

Sen. Bernie Sanders quickly tweeted that Australia provides free or subsidized health care: “Thank you Mr. Trump for admitting that universal health care is the better way to go. I’ll be sure to quote you on the floor of the Senate.”

The Latest
The 45th annual festival in the heart of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community continues all weekend.
Police in the western suburb said the wounded people were targeted in the procession.
While state agencies have yet to say what could’ve been compromised, some companies have told employees their payroll information may have been compromised.
Kyron Goode, 18, was found with a gunshot wound to the chest in the 500 block of South Genesee Street, according to the Lake County Coroner’s Office.
Years before the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax mailing, the “Unabomber’s” deadly homemade bombs changed the way Americans mailed packages and boarded airplanes, even virtually shutting down air travel on the West Coast in July 1995.