After promising just a week ago that the GOP will be the party of health care, Donald Trump has changed his tune, now saying Republicans will introduce a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act “right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win … back the House.” In other words, Trump just made the 2020 election all about health care, which was also the number one issue in the midterm elections when Democrats won the House. Republicans on the hill are no doubt relieved in the short term because there was no plan.
Politico writes:
“In public and private, Republican leaders made clear that they didn’t want anything to do with the president’s most recent maneuver. They begged Trump to back down, and made their displeasure known to other administration officials, as well.
“GOP lawmakers even took the position that if Trump wanted to lay out his own health care proposal, then they would be willing to look at it. But Senate Republicans — facing a tough electoral fight to maintain their majority in 2020 — have refused to sign on to a new administration drive before seeing the specifics, giving them room to disavow any Trump proposal if it hinders their own political outlook.”
Earlier, Trump had tweeted:
“…Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions. The Republican Party will be known as the Party of Great
HealtCare (sic). Meantime, the USA is doing better than ever & is respected again!”
In reality, The Washington Post explains the about-face happened because, “Congressional Republicans were caught off guard by Trump’s rapid shift to focus on health care last week, which was set off by his abrupt decision to direct the Justice Department to intervene in a federal court case seeking to eliminate the ACA in its entirety on constitutional grounds.”
Many Republicans (especially those up for re-election) realized this wasn’t a hill that wanted to die on, so Trump was forced to punt and this seems to be his new strategy.
