Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has sounded like he’s ready to “move on” from repealing ObamaCare, but President Trump has other plans.
“Based on the fact that the very unfair and unpopular Individual Mandate has been terminated as part of our Tax Cut Bill, which essentially Repeals (over time) ObamaCare, the Democrats & Republicans will eventually come together and develop a great new HealthCare plan!,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning.
The GOP-backed $1.5 trillion tax overhaul signed into law by Trump last week dealt a potentially fatal blow to the Affordable Care Act by doing away with the individual mandate, which McConnell characterized as taking “the heart out of ObamaCare.”
But after failing several times to repeal and replace former President Obama’s top domestic achievement, the Kentucky Republican said it’s time to look at other issues.
“Well, we obviously were unable to completely repeal and replace with a 52-48 Senate,” McConnell told National Public Radio in an interview last week, referring to the partisan split in Senate. “We’ll have to take a look at what that looks like with a 51-49 Senate. But I think we’ll probably move on to other issues.”
Republicans will see their majority in the chamber shrink in January after Sen.-elect Doug Jones, a Democrat, is seated after defeating GOP candidate Roy Moore in a special election in Alabama earlier this month.
At a cabinet meeting last week, Trump sounded the death knell of ObamaCare.
“When the individual mandate is being repealed that means ObamaCare is being repealed,” he said. “We have essentially repealed ObamaCare, and we will come up with something much better.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said getting rid of the individual mandate will result in an estimated 13 million Americans losing health insurance by 2027 and an increase in premiums of about 10 percent.