Republican: ObamaCare helped ‘one or two people’ nationally

A House Republican on Tuesday quipped that just “one or two people in the country” gained healthcare under ObamaCare — a vast underestimation of the total number of people covered under the law.

Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) said in an on-air discussion with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins that he expected Obama to tout his signature healthcare plan in the State of the Union address. 

{mosads}“If I were him, and what he would do, is probably pull out the one or two people in the country who didn’t have health insurance before and say, ‘Look, so-and-so here has it now and he didn’t have it then,’ ” Garrett said.

“But the question is: Was Obamacare the best way to provide health insurance to those few people who did not have it before at the same time that millions of Americans suffered under the results of it?”

Since the passage of ObamaCare in 2010, more than 16 million people have gained coverage, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, in large part because of the law’s generous subsidies.

The uninsured rate has dropped from 20.3 percent in 2010 to a historic low of 13 percent in 2015.

Garrett, a right-leaning New Jersey lawmaker, has also recently come under fire for refusing to contribute to the House Republican campaign arm because it supported gay candidates.

In this fall’s election, Garrett is facing a challenge from a former Bill Clinton speechwriter Josh Gottheimer. Gottheimer recently raised more than $1 million for his campaign, though Garrett remains ahead in fundraising figures with $2.2 million in the bank as of last summer.