Walz faces backlash after defending Obama-era mandate repealed by Trump: 'Massive tax penalty'

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz faced backlash on social media after he defended an individual healthcare mandate during a back and forth with his counterpart, Republican Sen. JD Vance, in their first and only debate on Tuesday night. 

"The question about this of young people, whatever, that's the individual mandate," Walz said during a conversation on healthcare and the Affordable Care Act at the CBS News debate in New York City. "And Republicans fought tooth and nail saying Americans should be free to do this."

Vance then interjected, asking, "Tim do you think the individual mandate is a good idea?"

"I think the idea of making sure the risk pool is broad enough to cover everyone -- that's the only way insurance works. When it doesn't, it collapses. You are asking pre- ACA where we get people out. Look, people know that they need to be on health care. People expect it to be there."

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Walz went on to say that the ACA "works" but we can "continue to do better."

Walz's comments defending the individual mandate drew criticism on social media, with people pointing out that it was repealed during the Trump administration.

"We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year — forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans," Trump told an audience during the 2018 State of the Union Address.

"We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare — the individual mandate is now gone," he added.

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"Tim Walz just endorsed reinstating the Obamacare mandate which was a massive tax penalty for Americans who can't afford to buy insurance," GOP Sen. Tom Cotton posted on X. 

"Oh my god, Walz defending the individual mandate," journalist Josh Barro posted on X. "Does he know there isn't one anymore?"

"Tim Walz doubles down on his support for Obamacare’s individual mandate tax, by far the least popular part of Obamacare," Americans for Tax Reform Director Mike Palicz posted on X.

"This would violate Kamala’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400K. Trump Tax Cuts repealed the hated individual mandate tax."

During the debate, Vance argued, "Donald Trump has said that if we allow states to experiment a little bit on how to cover both the chronically ill, but the non-chronically ill, it's not just a plan. He actually implemented some of these regulations when he was President of the United States. And I think you can make a really good argument that it salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along."

Fox News Digital reported Monday that Walz has previously voiced his support for single-payer government-run healthcare.

"I think that's probably the path where we end up," Walz said in a 2018 debate while running for governor when asked, "Are you for single-payer?"

"And I say that because, be very clear about this, there were no protections for preexisting conditions before the ACA," Walz continued. "A vote for the ACA was the first time in this nation's history we had those protections and making sure people have that protection, making sure they were covered, and then making sure we were focused on preventative care, people were finally getting that under the ACA, we started to see health outcomes improve and that's the real key to driving down insurance premium prices."