(Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP/ Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) – President Donald Trump said Thursday that Democrats want to drain the health care of Americans and finance health care for illegal immigrants.



Democrats want to “raid Medicare to fund a thing called socialism” with proposals for single-payer health care, also known as the public option, the president said during a speech at The Villages, Fla.





“Every one of these plans involves rationing care, restricting access, denying coverage, slashing quality, and massively raising taxes. They want to raise your taxes. They also want to have open borders so the people can just come in and do whatever they want to do, and they have no idea who’s coming in by the way,” Trump said.



“Congressional Democrats’ extreme agenda would destroy our booming economy very quickly. One of the most disturbing proposals from left-wing politicians involves draining your health care to finance the open borders that we just discussed. That’s how they want to finance it,” he said.

“Leading Democrats have pledged to give free health care to illegal immigrants. They put foreign citizens who break our laws and endanger our country. They put them way ahead of American citizens like you who obey our laws. I will never allow these politicians to steal your health care and give it away to illegal aliens,” the president pledged.



“And now in New York, I hear they passed a new regulation that if you use the word illegal immigrant – did I hear correctly? They want to charge you a fine of $250,000, in other words, sell your home in The Villages ‘cause you happen to say we don’t like illegal immigrants pouring into our country illegally. We want people to come into our country legally through a process, and we’re all in favor of that,” he said.



“And by the way, the fake news will cut the last part of the sentence off. They’ll just put the first part, and they’ll say man, is he rough! He’s too tough. I can’t vote for him. A nation must put his own citizens first. My administration is standing up for American seniors, and we’ll always protect the Medicare benefits you earned and paid for,” the president said.



He accused Democrats of slashing Medicare by $800 billion during the Obama administration to pay for Obamacare.



“Now one of their new proposals backed by more than 130 Democrat members of Congress would cost … $33 trillion – and that’s on the low side … and reduce Americans’ household income by $17,000 per year,” he said.



The president signed an executive order at the event Thursday to protect Medicare and improve its fiscal sustainability.



According to the White House, the executive order is designed to empower patients with more plan choices, access to telehealth and new therapies, and allow them to have more time with doctors. It is expected to maximize freedom for Medicare patients and providers by reducing regulatory burdens and eliminating unnecessary barriers.



It will also streamline approval of therapies, while reducing obstacles to improved patient care; improve quality by implementing reforms that better link payment to value; and protect beneficiaries by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.



“The proposed Medicare for All Act of 2019, as introduced in the Senate ("Medicare for All") would destroy our current Medicare program, which enables our Nation's seniors and other vulnerable Americans to receive affordable, high-quality care from providers of their choice. Rather than upend Medicare as we know it, my Administration will protect and improve it,” the executive order stated.



The executive order directs the HHS secretary, within one year, to propose “a regulation and implement other administrative actions to enable the Medicare program to provide beneficiaries with more diverse and affordable plan choices.”



It also directs the secretary to submit to the president within 180 days a report that identifies approaches to modify Medicare fee-for-service (Medicare FFS) payments “to more closely reflect the prices paid for services” in Medicare Advantage and the commercial insurance market, “to encourage more robust price competition, and otherwise to inject market pricing into Medicare FFS reimbursement.”



The secretary is also directed to, within one year of the executive order’s signing, “propose regulatory and sub-regulatory changes to the Medicare program to encourage innovation for patients” by “streamlining the approval, coverage, and coding process so that innovative products are brought to market faster.”



The secretary’s report is also to include approaches to adopt “regulations and guidance that minimize and eliminate, as appropriate, the time and steps between approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and coverage decisions by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).”