A day after Steve Bannon seemed to confirm Donald Trump’s intent to destroy the Affordable Care Act (ACA), saying the president was “gonna blow that thing up”, a Republican senator who helped dynamite two Republican replacement bills said Trump was hurting American citizens.

Bannon, a former senior White House strategist who remains close to the president, spoke at a conservative event in Washington on Saturday, at the end of a week in which Trump signed an executive order to allow the sale of cheaper insurance under the ACA and ended federal subsidies that help poorer Americans afford health coverage.

“Then you had Obamacare,” Bannon said at the Values Voter Summit, as he listed Trump’s recent achievements. “Not gonna make the CSR [cost-sharing reduction] payments, gonna blow that thing up, gonna blow those [insurance] exchanges up, right?”

Earlier, Trump had responded to widespread opposition to his moves by claiming they were positive, tweeting: “Millions of people benefit!” He also called the cost-sharing subsidies a “Dems windfall” to insurance companies.

On Sunday, Susan Collins of Maine was interviewed on CNN’s State of the Union. She joined with other senators to defeat two attempts to repeal and replace the ACA, Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement that is popularly known as Obamacare.

This is the equivalent of healthcare arson. He is literally setting the entire healthcare system on fire Chris Murphy

“What the president is doing is affecting the ability of vulnerable people to receive healthcare right now,” she said.

Asked if Trump’s actions would hurt ordinary American citizens, she said: “They are very disruptive moves … I do believe that.”

Collins said the CSR subsidies were “not a bailout of the insurance [companies]. What this money is used for is to help low-income people afford their deductibles and their copays, so that healthcare is available to them.

“What the president has also done is take steps to cut off funding to reach people who are eligible for subsidies under the ACA.



“So these certainly are very disruptive moves that will result in smaller numbers of people being insured, that will make it more difficult for low-income people to afford their out-of-pocket costs, and that will destabilise the insurance markets.”

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy was more direct. “This is the equivalent of healthcare arson,” the senator said. “[Trump] is literally setting the entire healthcare system on fire just because [he] is upset that the United States Congress won’t pass a repeal bill.”

The South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a sometime fierce critic of Trump who now regularly mentions that he plays golf with him, appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation. He insisted the CSR subsidies were in fact only beneficial to big insurance companies.

“Aetna’s had a 470% increase in their stock prices since the ACA,” he said. “Cigna, 480%. Humana, 420%. The president is not going to continue to throw good money after bad, give $7bn to insurance companies unless something changes about Obamacare that would justify it.”

Graham said Trump had spoken on Saturday to Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who is negotiating with Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, over ACA reform. The president was “encouraging him to get a bipartisan deal that would have some flexibility”, Graham said.

At the Values Voter Summit, Bannon also called for “a season of war against a GOP establishment”.

Graham said Bannon was “a symptom of a problem”, which was that Republican failure on healthcare reform, tax cuts and other issues could put establishment figures out of a job.

“Bannon can’t beat us if we’re successful,” he said. “And if we’re not successful, it doesn’t matter who tries to beat us, they’ll be successful.

An Associated Press analysis released on Saturday showed that nearly 70% of those who benefit from cost-sharing subsidies live in states Trump won last November. One Floridian interviewed by the AP said Trump’s cut would be “a death sentence” for some.