Republicans have told many lies about health care over the years.

JD Vance on Sunday doubled down on their newest one.

During an appearance on NBCs Meet the Press , Vance claimed that Donald Trump during his presidency protected Americans getting insurance through the Affordable Care Act from losing their health coverage.

Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio who is now his partys vice presidential nominee, went on to say that Trump actually protected a lot more additional Americans from losing their health coverage.

Trump had said something similar during Tuesdays presidential debate, when he claimed he saved the 2010 health care law during the presidency.

In reality, Trump spent the first year of his presidency trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, following through on a promise hed made from the very first days of his 2016 presidential campaign.

The law, also known as Obamacare , allowed many millions of Americans to get insurance by enrolling in Medicaid or subsidized private insurance and by prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions.

Its the reason the number of Americans without insurance has plummeted to record lows .

As a candidate and then as president, Trump repeatedly assured Americans that he would replace the Affordable Care Act with something terrific that, itll be great health care for much less money and that were going to have insurance for everybody .

But Trump never had such a plan.

Instead, once he became president, he pushed Congress to pass Republican bills that would have undermined those new rules on insurers, while dramatically reducing funding and eligibility for the new insurance offerings.

As a result, according to multiple independent projections, many millions would have lost insurance.

An Example Of Trumps Intentions On Health Care

One such piece of legislation was the American Health Care Act of 2017, whose passage through the House of Representatives Trump celebrated with a rally on the White House lawn.

Had that proposal become law, the Congressional Budget Office predicted, the number of Americans without insurance would have soared by 19 million as of 2020, and by 23 million as of 2026.