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 Trump had pledged in recent days to use court action to end
Obamacare, the signature law of his Democratic predecessor, Barack
Obama, and said his Republican Party would push over the next few
months for a better healthcare plan at lower cost for most
Americans.
But Republican leaders in Congress quickly shied away from the issue
and pushed him to reconsider.
In a series of late-night tweets on Monday, Trump did just that,
saying there would be no vote on any healthcare legislation until
after next year's election.
Democrats gleefully jumped on the delay, saying it showed Trump and
his party had no idea what to do with healthcare beyond repealing
the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.
"Last night the president tweeted that they will come up with their
plan in 2021. Translation: they have no healthcare plan," Senate
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said. "They are for repeal, they
have no replace."
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, said he told
Trump on Monday the party was not about to restart work on
comprehensive healthcare legislation, noting Republicans were unable
to pass a plan when they controlled both chambers of Congress in the
first two years of the Trump presidency.
“I made it clear to him we were not going to be doing that in the
Senate,” McConnell told reporters.
Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in November
elections after campaigning heavily on strengthening Obamacare.
FIRST VOTE
Trump said on Tuesday he and Republicans would draw up a new
healthcare plan ahead of the 2020 election and implement it soon
afterward.
"I think we’re going to have a great healthcare package ... If we
get back the House and on the assumption we keep the Senate and we
keep the presidency – which I hope are two good assumptions – we’re
going to have a phenomenal healthcare,” Trump told reporters.
He said a Republican plan would mean most Americans pay lower
premiums and deductibles for their healthcare than they currently
pay under Obamacare, revisiting a promise he made during the 2016
campaign.
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Trump told House Republicans in a speech on Tuesday night that they
should campaign on a pledge to make healthcare the first vote in
Congress after the 2020 election.
He said one of the major reasons Democrats won control of the House
last year was because Republicans did not have a healthcare plan to
put forward to voters.
"Republicans should not run away from healthcare. You can’t do it.
You’re going to get clobbered," Trump said.
While Trump's delay gives Republicans more time to knit together an
alternative to Obamacare, it all but guarantees a 2020 battle over
the divisive issue.
"Don’t let President Trump fool you, America. Republicans are not
the party of healthcare. They are the party that wants to end your
healthcare," Schumer said at a rally on Tuesday. "We Democrats will
not stop fighting tooth and nail to protect America’s healthcare,
today, tomorrow, and on in through 2021.”
Trump and his fellow Republicans vowed in the 2016 presidential
election to "repeal and replace" Obamacare but failed to do so
during their first two years in power, despite control of both the
Senate and the House.
Several of the leading candidates for the Democratic 2020
presidential nomination, including a number of current U.S.
senators, have already made healthcare a major part of their
campaign message.
Trump accuses Democrats of seeking "a socialist takeover of American
healthcare," and is certain to take that argument onto the 2020
campaign trail.
"I see what the Democrats are doing. It’s a disaster what they’re
planning and everyone knows it,” he told reporters in the Oval
Office on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Susan Cornwell; dditional reporting
by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Susan Thomas, Bill Berkrot and Peter
Cooney)
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