WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is calling on Republicans to revive the effort to quash the Affordable Care Act, handing Democrats an opportunity to unite in defense of the law as they try to move past the Russia investigation and win the White House in 2020.
Trump’s administration is asking a federal appeals court to strike down the entire health care law. The president vowed on Tuesday to make the GOP the “party of health care” and told Senate Republicans to lean into their own agenda on the issue as they head into next year’s election.
The moves could help Trump rally his conservative base as he celebrates Attorney General William Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that said there was no evidence that the president or his associates colluded with Russia in the 2016 campaign. But the push also poured political kerosene on an issue that many Democrats credit with powering their midterm election victories in November.
Top Democrats, including presidential candidates, said health care is an issue that resonates with voters more than the Mueller investigation.
“This is something that Americans care deeply about,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a White House hopeful. “I may not have been asked about the Mueller report at town hall meetings, but I was sure asked about health care.”
Other Democrats appeared to relish the chance to shift to health care. Asked if the Trump administration’s court filing allowed Democrats to turn the page on Mueller, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would have been talking about health care no matter what.
“We have been dealing with health care constantly,” the California Democrat said. “The public attention has been on the Mueller report, but we have been focused on health care.”
Another 2020 contender, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, said if Trump “wants to have a fight on health care, it’s a fight we’re willing to have. And it’s a fight he is going to lose.”
That confidence is in part because health care was a big political winner for Democrats last year. According to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters nationwide, nearly 4 in 10 Democratic voters identified health care as the most important among a list of key issues including immigration, the economy and the environment. A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found 55 percent of Americans supporting the improvement and not the replacement of the nation’s health care system.
The Supreme Court has twice upheld President Barack Obama’s health care law, known as Obamacare. Five justices — a majority — who upheld the law in 2012 are still on the bench.
Trump’s effort to repeal Obamacare narrowly failed in the Senate in 2017. Nearly two years later, it’s unclear where the White House plans to focus its health care efforts. Trump’s most recent budget backs one piece of the legislation that stalled in the Senate.
Republicans gained Senate seats last fall, but there’s no indication that GOP senators want another fight over repealing Obamacare — particularly not those up for re-election next year. The GOP also lost control of the House, which means any attempt to dismantle the law could not pass Congress.
