Trump: Obamacare has been a menace 'for 17 years'

It was probably just a misread of a teleprompter, but President Donald Trump began his much-awaited remarks on health care Monday by saying Obamacare became law 17 years ago.

Seventeen years ago Barack Obama wasn't a U.S. senator, much less the president.

In the opening of his speech delivered at the White House, Trump said, "For the past 17 years, Obamacare has wreaked havoc on the lives of innocent, hardworking Americans."

Later he did correctly refer to the Affordable Care Act, which was passed in 2010, with the phrase "for the past seven years."

Naturally on Twitter, the error did not go unnoticed.

Instant chyron fact-check pic.twitter.com/kchjlBfO0M — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 24, 2017 Since the dawn of time, man has yearned to repeal and replace Obamacare https://t.co/XVFuIWOB8I — Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) July 24, 2017 "For the past 17 years..." The Obamacare wars certainly seem like they've gone on that long. — David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) July 24, 2017 trump: "For the past 17 years, Obamacare has wreaked havoc"



Me: It was passed seven years ago dummy. Your stupidity is wreaking havoc. — Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) July 24, 2017

Later in his speech, Trump placed the blame on the failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on senators of his own party.

"But so far, Senate Republicans have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare. They now have a chance however to hopefully -- hopefully -- fix what has been so badly broken for such a long time and that is through replacement of a horrible, disaster known as Obamacare," Trump said.