House condemns Trump health fight
WASHINGTON – After President Donald Trump vowed to make health care a top 2020 campaign issue, Democrats said: Game on.
Tuesday, Trump told the campaign arm of House Republicans that the party would get “clobbered” in next year’s election if it failed to overhaul the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The next day, House Democrats pushed their GOP colleagues to say whether they stand with Trump on the issue.
Eight House Republicans voted Wednesday for the Democrats’ resolution condemning Trump for asking the courts to throw out the ACA.
One Democrat – Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, who voted against the law’s passage in 2010 – opposed the resolution, which passed 240-186.
“Once again, House Republicans have shown that they are full accomplices in President Trump’s campaign to destroy protections for people with preexisting conditions and take away Americans’ health care,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said after the vote.
Republicans dismissed the move as a political stunt.
“It is like every week, there has to be a resolution on the floor to condemn the president, something he said or did, not a policy proposal that will actually solve the nation’s problems,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.
Trump is eager to engage.
“This will be a great campaign issue,” Trump tweeted hours before the vote.
Trump said Republicans – who were unable to agree on a replacement health care plan when they led the House and the Senate – will have another go.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., shot that down Tuesday. “I made it clear to him we were not going to be doing that in the Senate,” McConnell said. Instead, he said, Republicans would focus on narrower health care measures – such as reducing the cost of prescription drugs.
Though most Republicans have an unfavorable view of the ACA overall, according to the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, even GOP majorities like individual provisions, including the law’s protections for people with preexisting health conditions.