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President Trump addresses reporters as he arrives for a Republican luncheon in the Senate at Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Andrew Harnik / AP
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Andrew Harnik / AP
President Trump addresses reporters as he arrives for a Republican luncheon in the Senate at Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Andrew Harnik / AP
President Trump's decision to start a new battle to dismantle President Barack Obama's health care law has stunned Capitol Hill lawmakers, who will have to face voters if the administration's efforts to overthrow the law this time.
Democrats overwhelmingly support the Affordable Care Act and introduced a bill this week to strengthen it. The government's decision to try to repeal it entirely was a political gift for a party wanting to go on the offensive after the conclusion of the investigation of the special advocate Robert Mueller .
Signaling the reversal of its previous legal strategy, which was aimed solely at fighting parts of the health care law, the Justice Ministry on Monday filed a two-sentence letter in a pending federal case that argued for Cancellation of the law as a whole.
The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., announced his intention Wednesday to try to impose a vote on an amendment to the draft law on disaster relief, currently being debated in the Senate, in order to block the funding of the work of the Department of Justice under the ACA. "Let's see how our Republican colleagues will vote on this," he said.
Health care was the main motivation for the 2018 midterm elections, which enabled Democrats to win a majority in the House. According to an analysis of poll data released by the Washington Post poll in 69 battlefield districts, health has emerged as the number one issue for voters – with priority given to Trump, the economy and the world. 'immigration.
For Republicans, renewed efforts threatened to pick up the scum of old political wounds. The senator of Maine, Susan Collins, who is to be re-elected in 2020, was one of three Republican senators who contributed to the defeat of the GOP's last effort in 2017 to abolish Obamacare. Collins told reporters Wednesday that she "Opposed with vehemence"At the decision of the administration." A spokeswoman said Collins was drafting a letter to Attorney General William Barr to voice his opposition to the effort.
While Republicans and Trump have campaigned for almost a decade against the health care law – the biggest national achievement of the Obama presidency – the party has never competed around an alternative policy that would provide insurance coverage to more Americans and protect those who – existing conditions.
The President continues to fight on Twitter and at political rallies with the late Senator John McCain, R-Ariz, for his role in the derailment of the GOP's repealing effort, but his attacks do not reflect precisely the fact that there has never been any other bill on health care to vote that could have been passed by Congress. McCain, Collins and Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, were all deeply skeptical of a strategy that threatened to undermine health care for millions of Americans without a clear plan to repair the damage that would derogate from the law .
Health care is an issue that the President always wants to address. Trump met privately with the Senate Republicans this week and told them that it was an area in which the party had gone bankrupt and that he wanted a win. "The Republican Party will soon be known as the health care party," Trump told reporters at Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the president repeated his prediction that the GOP would be "the party of great health care". He described the current law as a "disaster" and referred to the case pending in federal court. He claimed that the case would do very well the case at the Supreme Court. And if the high court annulled the law, he swore: "We will have a plan that will be much better than" Obamacare ".
The GOP's political strategists are skeptical. "Dear GOP, when the Democrats ignite by advocating the destruction of American health care, try to resist the temptation to ask them to spend the kerosene", tweeted Josh Holmes, former chief of staff of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Who advises the GOP campaigns in the 2020 elections.
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