Trump Retreats on Health Care, Saying Republican Plan Will Appear After the 2020 Election
WASHINGTON — President Trump announced that Republicans would not present a health care overhaul proposal until after the 2020 election, punting on coming up with a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, which the administration is currently fighting in court to invalidate. The issue now will dominate presidential campaigns in the months leading up to the 2020 election.
Mr. Trump announced his new timetable in a thread of Twitter posts late Monday, putting off one of his biggest campaign promises until, the president hopes, he is re-elected.
“Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn’t work,” began Mr. Trump, who went on to add that Republicans were “developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare.”
He said a vote on it would be taken after the election, “when Republicans hold the Senate & win back the House.”
It was not immediately clear on Tuesday what the Trump administration would do if courts ruled in favor of abolishing the health care system established by President Barack Obama. Last week, the Trump administration broadened its war on the health care law by arguing that the entire Affordable Care Act should be invalidated. If the law were abandoned, at least 20 million people could lose their health insurance. A court battle could stretch past the 2020 election.
Mr. Trump described a future Republican proposal as “far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare.”
Last week, Mr. Trump declared that Republicans would become the party of health care, a promise Democrats immediately embraced. On Monday, Mr. Trump maintained that position, but said Republicans would pass a new law once they won back both chambers of Congress in the 2020 election, victories that are not foregone conclusions.
Democrats won seats in the 2018 midterm elections, when they took back control of the House, largely because of their campaign focus on health care — especially protecting Americans with pre-existing medical conditions and lowering health care costs.
Some of the president’s senior advisers pushed for the Trump administration to join a lawsuit in Texas challenging the constitutionality of the entire current health care law, a more expansive position than it had taken previously, when the administration argued that protections for people with pre-existing conditions should be struck down.
While some of Mr. Trump’s aides encouraged joining the lawsuit, others raised concerns, including the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone. Mr. Cipollone said Attorney General William P. Barr had issues with joining the suit as well. But once the president made clear his mind was made up, the Justice Department went along with the plan without complaint, people familiar with the events said.