President Trump’s surprise announcement that his administration will seek to convince federal judges to throw out the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) came Monday after “a heated meeting in the Oval Office,” reports the New York Times.
Trump’s acting chief of staff and others argued that Trump “could do through the courts what he could not do through Congress: Repeal his predecessor’s signature achievement,” the Times says.
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Domestic Policy chief Joe Grogan and acting Management and Budget director Russ Vought told Trump that the notably conservative 5th Circuit Court is likely to dump the ACA, according to Politico, which noted that Attorney General William Barr and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar opposed the decision.
Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman who has long sought repeal of the ACA, also reminded Trump that ending Obamacare was one of his major campaign promises.
The 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, is considering a Texas federal judge’s ruling that the ACA became invalid — and unconstitutional — when the Republicans’ 2017 tax bill “eliminated [its] penalties for not carrying health insurance,” says the
The Post quotes Louisiana State University law professor Paul Baier as saying “the 5th Circuit can be a very wild card” and that the court “sometimes … sticks its judicial neck out” on hotly debated issues.
Many observers believe the matter will eventually wind up in the Supreme Court, and that apparently includes the president himself: Trump boasted Tuesday that “if the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we’ll have a plan that is far better than Obamacare.” He also declared that Republicans “will soon be known as the party of health care — you watch.”
But there is no indication that the president really does have a replacement plan, and that has some Republicans worried.
“He didn’t offer a plan,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Bloomberg News after a Capitol Hill luncheon with Trump on Tuesday. And Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who voted against repealing the ACA two years ago, said she was “very disappointed” in Trump’s position, says the Post.
“White House aides acknowledge that there is no specific plan and that when Trump has said the Republicans need to be the party of health care, it is more of a branding exercise.” – The Washington Post
“Republicans in Congress have no obvious road forward on legislation to replace the [ACA] that could pass the Democrat-controlled House,” the Times says.
And, the Hill reports, the Trump health care move caught party leaders completely off guard.
“Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose panel has jurisdiction over health care, said he received no heads up from Trump or the White House that the president would call Tuesday for the GOP to become “the party of health care.”
“…If Trump had told GOP senators of his plans, they say they would have sought to convince him not to throw their party back into a war over healthcare — the issue Democrats believe was instrumental to their takeover of the House in last year’s midterms.”
Repeal or any significant change in the ACA would affect many millions of Americans. The law remains widely popular, and federal officials announced Monday that 11.4 million people signed up for Obamacare coverage this year, nearly as many as in 2018.
