Trump allegedly wondered aloud, 'Why can't Medicare simply cover everybody?'

President Trump might be more liberal than he'd care to admit.

The Washington Examiner reported Friday that Michael Wolff — the author of Fire and Fury, the explosive new book about the Trump White House — claims in the tome that the president liked the idea of universal health care enough to ask the question: "Why can't Medicare simply cover everybody?"

Medicare is a government-funded health-care program available only to those over the age of 65. Its funding is a well-worn source of controversy in Washington, as Republican deficit hawks seek to curtail its funding and its scope while progressive liberals like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) desire an expansion of the program to all U.S. citizens as a replacement to ObamaCare.

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Wolff further alleges that in addition to pondering universal Medicare, Trump was, in general, "rather more for ObamaCare than for repealing ObamaCare." As a presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly called ObamaCare "a disaster" and pledged to get rid of it on his very first day of office.

Wolff claims that Trump had to be talked into making ObamaCare repeal his first legislative priority by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and former Health Secretary Tom Price. Trump's reason for ultimately conceding to Ryan and Price, Wolff writes, was that the president "didn't especially care about" health care.

The Washington Examiner points out that Trump's alleged disinterest in the fine print of health-care legislation is hardly breaking news. Despite tweeting that he was well-versed on the issue, Trump was reportedly perplexed by the Senate's proposal to repeal ObamaCare last summer. Last February, the president famously proclaimed, "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."

Read more at the Washington Examiner.