Scrap Obamacare

Senate Republicans shrug off Trump's latest bid to scrap Obamacare

The congressional GOP tried during the former president's first term to repeal the health care law. Now he wants to try again -- and they're unmoved.

BURGESS EVERETT

Former President Donald Trump’s renewed push to scrap Obamacare if he returns to the White House is falling flat with the Senate Republicans who'd have to pass it.

The GOP conference is still scarred from its 2017 attempt with Trump to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, which failed on the Senate floor. And the Republican presidential frontrunner's weekend announcement that he’s “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act didn't exactly thrill GOP senators during interviews on Monday evening.

Yes, Republicans still say they dislike Obamacare and want to bring health care costs down. But as far as scrapping the law? “I don't see that as being the rallying cry. I really don’t,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said.

“Boy, I haven’t thought about that one in a while,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said. “I just don't know what [Trump's] thinking or how we would go about doing that. That fight, as you know, was six years ago now. And so, if he’s got some ideas, we’re open to them.”

In a Truth Social post over the weekend, Trump dinged the Senate GOP’s failure to repeal the law as a “low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!” Yet Republicans say they don’t feel the same political pressure to get rid of the 13-year-old law anymore.

“I don’t hear any Republicans talking about it,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who visits all of his state’s 99 counties and is a senior member of the Finance Committee. “I’m going to spend my time on rural health care and getting more doctors and stuff like that.”

Indeed, many Republicans said if their party can reclaim the White House as well as Senate majority in 2025, they will probably try to take some action on health insurance costs, drug prices and transparency.

But as far as ripping up Obamacare, as the GOP once vowed to do?

Well, that ship has sailed.

“We’ve gotten so far down the road now that it’s almost technically impossible to do that. But there is a way to get rid of all the bad and hopefully put some good back in place," Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said.