Republicans unveil plan to replace Obamacare

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump and his top health official praised the new Republican health care legislation on Tuesday, as the party embarked on a drive to sell the proposal to lawmakers and the public.

Trump’s morning tweet lauding “our wonderful new Healthcare Bill” kicked off the day. Shortly afterwards, health secretary Tom Price wrote to the chairmen of the two House committees that wrote the measures, saying “they align with the president’s goal of rescuing Americans from the failures of the Affordable Care Act.”

The new bill aims to replace that law with a system designed along conservative lines. Primarily affected would be some 20 million people who purchase their own private health plans directly from an insurer and the more than 70 million covered by Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people.

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney said it’s unfair to compare how many people would have health insurance under the new Republican plan.

“What Obamacare did was make insurance affordable, but care impossible to actually afford,” Mulvaney said on NBC’s Today Show. “The deductibles were simply too high. So people could say they have coverage but they couldn’t actually get the medical care they needed.”

House committees planned to begin voting on the legislation on Wednesday, launching what could be the year’s defining battle in Congress and capping seven years of Republican vows to repeal Obamacare. It’s unclear if the party can manage to overcome divisions within itself and deliver a final product.