Bill Clinton has attempted to backtrack on his comment that Obamacare, a cornerstone of Barack Obama’s legacy, was the “craziest thing in the world”.

Speaking at a rally in Flint, Michigan, on Monday, the former president said the Affordable Care Act had caused healthcare premiums of the middle class who did not qualify for subsidies to rise while their coverage went down.

“So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world,” Mr Clinton said.

The next day at a rally in Ohio, he clarified that the Act did a “world of good” and the efforts to repeal it by Republicans were a “terrible mistake”.

“We, for the first time in our history, at least are providing insurance to more than 90% of our people,” he said.

“But there is a group of people — mostly small business owners and employees — who make just a little too much money to qualify for Medicaid expansion or for the tax incentives who can’t get affordable health insurance premiums in a lot of places. And the reason is they’re not in big pools.

“So they have no bargaining power.”