Trump defers push for new health care plan
President holds off following resistance from GOP leadership
By Lisa Mascaro and Catherine Lucey ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks to reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday. A Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act is expected to be an issue after the 2020 election.
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned President Donald Trump to hold off action in Congress to replace the Affordable Care Act, telling him to instead take it on the road as a 2020 campaign issue.
The two spoke Monday ahead of Trump’s evening tweets suggesting he had moved off his push for a big new health care bill.
“I made it clear to him that we were not going to be doing that in the Senate,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday.
Asked if there was any difference between the two of them, the Republican leader said, “not any longer.”
McConnell said Trump told him he “accepted” the situation “would be developing a plan that he would take to the American people during the 2020 campaign.” Trump indicated the new proposal would be what he “would be advocating in a second term if there were a Republican Congress.”
McConnell added, “So we don’t have a misunderstanding about that.”
Trump’s latest tweets punted the promise of a new GOP bill, which ran into stiff resistance from Republicans in Congress.
They encouraged him to focus instead on bipartisan health care changes they could accomplish with Democrats — including lowering prescription drug prices — rather than an overhaul of the “Obamacare” law that’s proved futile. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear Republicans should instead spend their time attacking the Democrats’ “Medicare for All” proposals.
Trump’s shift — he tweeted Congress will vote on a GOP plan after the elections “when Republicans hold the Senate & win back the House” — makes it clear the health care debate will be left for voters to decide during the race for the White House.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters Tuesday that Trump “wants to talk about the principles.”
“He wants to work with Congress in order to come up with the right health care plan,” Sanders said.
Republicans have been speaking publicly and privately to Trump since he surprised them last week with an unexpected pledge that the GOP will be “the party of health care.” They don’t yet have a comprehensive proposal to replace the ACA law and had no big plans to unveil one.
Trump’s Monday night admission that ahealth care vote would not happen until after the elections came after he heard from lawmakers that it wasn’t the right time to pivot to the issue, said a person familiar with the conversations who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump will “hold Americans hostage through 2020” on an issue that affects millions of people. He said that when Trump “insists he has a magic plan that we can see if only the American people re-elect him,” it isn’t true.
Last week, the Trump administration told a federal appeals court it wants the entire Affordable Care Act struck down, an outcome that could leave millions of people uninsured.