United States President Donald Trump has said that he will sign an executive order that requires insurance companies to cover all pre-existing conditions, a requirement that already made by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Trump said, “I’ll be pursuing a major executive order over the next two weeks that requires health insurance companies to cover all preexisting conditions for all companies.”  “That’s a big thing. I’ve always been very strongly in favour. We have to cover pre-existing conditions,” reported local media quoting the president.

Though Trump did not specify a date, he emphasised that such a mandate “has never been done before.” But insurance companies are already required to cover patients with pre-existing conditions under Obamacare.

Trump in the past has tried to dismantle Obamacare.

“Under current law, health insurance companies can’t refuse to cover you or charge you more just because you have a ‘pre-existing condition,'” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website states. “That is, a health problem you had before the date that new health coverage starts.”

The rule applies to all health insurance plans bought after March 23, 2010.

After Trump’s announcement, administration officials of former President Barack Obama pointed out the redundancy of the possible executive order.

An advisor of Obama’s presidential campaigns Karine Jean-Pierre  took to Twitter and posted a photo of Obama signing the Affordable Care Act on Twitter.

“President Obama and Vice President Biden did it first,” she wrote.

Richard Stengel, who was under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs under Obama, clarified that pre-existing conditions are already covered under Obamacare, and pointed out that “your administration is currently arguing in the Supreme Court to strike down that law.”