Trump doubles down on ObamaCare decision

President Trump on Wednesday defended his administration’s controversial decision to back a legal effort to strike down the entirety of former President Obama’s signature health care law.

 

The move has rattled congressional Republicans, introducing an issue that Democrats feel they can use in the 2020 election to win back the Senate majority and even expand their House majority. 

 

But Trump on Wednesday showed no signs of backing down. 

{mosads}Asked about the Department of Justice’s decision to call for all of ObamaCare to be struck down in an ongoing court case, Trump called the Affordable Care Act a “disaster,” saying insurance premiums are “too high” and the law is “far too expensive for the people, not only for the country.”

Trump also pledged the Republican Party would have a “far better” health care proposal than ObamaCare if the law is eventually thrown out by the Supreme Court.

“If the Supreme Court rules that ObamaCare is out, we’ll have a plan that is far better than ObamaCare,” the president said at the White House.

The Justice Department on Monday changed course by arguing in a brief memo that the entire ObamaCare law should be invalidated. Its previous position was that the law’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions were unconstitutional.

The administration’s decision to ramp up its legal fight against the law surprised Democrats and some Republicans and stirred controversy on Capitol Hill.

The timing of the administration’s decision seemed ideal for Democrats, who were on the back foot after Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary on Sunday of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe that was favorable to Trump. 

 

 

{mossecondads}Republicans in Congress tried and failed to repeal ObamaCare in 2017 and many in the party are wary of restarting the fight. But Trump believes health care can be a powerful issue for his party moving forward.

 

“I understand health care now, especially very well. A lot of people don’t understand it, we are going to be, the Republicans, the party of great health care,” Trump said, repeating a pledge he made on Tuesday. “The Democrats have, they’ve let you down, they came up with Obamacare, it’s terrible.”

The Justice Department is siding with a ruling from U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, who said last December that the entire law is unconstitutional because the GOP’s 2017 tax law overturned ObamaCare’s individual insurance mandate.