Trump Moves to Eliminate Obamacare Entirely
KEILAR: In our politics lead today, President Trump declaring first via tweet, then in the halls of Congress --</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of health care, you watch.</s>KEILAR: Interesting timing considering his administration just announced a major reversal on Obamacare. The Justice Department asked a federal judge to affirm a lower court's ruling and throw out the entire Affordable Care Act without a Republican plan to replace it. It's a political gift for Democrats looking to move on from the Mueller report, capitalizing on the announcement and unveiling a new health care plan of their own. Health care was the top issue in 2018 for voters and as CNN's Sunlen Serfaty reports, it could now define the 2020 race.</s>SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democrats on Capitol Hill are seizing.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This is actually an opportunity for us to speak to the American people with clarity. They say one thing and they do another.</s>SERFATY: Capitalizing on the Trump administration's decision to call for the elimination of the entire Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare, as the perfect pivot point to refocus back on health care, one of their marquee bread-and-butter issues.</s>PELOSI: Protecting and strengthening health care is why Democrats are here on day one.</s>SERFATY: The Trump administration's move laid out in a legal filing on Monday continued a remarkable shift from their position in the past. The president first proclaiming --</s>TRUMP: I want to keep a pre-existing condition. I think we need it.</s>SERFATY: Then, last year, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying parts of a law that protect people with pre-existing conditions could not be defended, but the rest of the law could stand. Now, the DOJ telling an Appeals Court that it agrees with a ruling of a federal judge in Texas that invalidated the entire health care law, saying it is not urging that any portion of the district court's judgment be reversed. Meaning the health care of millions of Americans who rely on Obamacare is in greater peril. If the laws ultimately overturned, many Americans could lose coverage for kids up to 26 remaining on their parents' plans, coverage for those with pre-existing conditions access to free birth control, mammograms and cholesterol tests among other things many Americans have come to rely on.</s>TRUMP: The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of healthcare, you watch.</s>SERFATY: The renewed fight --</s>REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D), TEXAS: We're going to fight with every breath that we have.</s>SERFATY: -- is already giving easy ammunition to Democrats many of whom ran and won on health care.</s>REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS CHAIR: House Democrats are focused on kitchen-table, pocketbook issues involving lower health care costs and increase pay for every day Americans.</s>SERFATY: It plays right into the hands of President Trump's 2020 Democratic opponents eager to take this on.</s>SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Leaders should stop playing politics with people's public health.</s>SERFATY: And Democrats up here on Capitol Hill feel that this was essentially perfect timing for them. They are very, very eager to move on past the Mueller report, past that fallout, and show that they're working on their own legislative priorities, not just focused on all the investigations and oversight of President Trump. And as far as for what's next for this health care law, Brianna, this will play out on the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans. That is known as a very, very conservative court and it could possibly wind up in the Supreme Court eventually in the end -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: All right. Sunlen Serfaty, thank you for that report. And it makes you wonder, John, why President Trump would do this. He has this victory lap. He's celebrating and then restarting the fight on health care, which is you heard someone report -- I mean, Democrats are just like thank you about this.</s>JAMES: Well, it was certainly a gift, nobody can deny that. But I've spoken with the president and I as you just heard him say, he wants the Republican Party to be the party of health care. I personally believe that quality and affordable health care is a necessity. We need to make sure that we cover pre-existing conditions, but we also need to make sure that we're doing so in a manner that the patients and the doctors have the power not the federal government and the insurance companies. And threatening private health care insurance and Medicare for all is Medicare for none. We need to make sure that we do it in a pragmatic way to make sure that all Americans are covered in a free market.</s>NAVARRO: This was the biggest issue in there are two seats where I live in south Florida that are now held by Democrats that were used to be held by Republicans because of this issue, because they stuck to it. They focused on it. It was, you know, laser focus on health care. People care about this. People are deathly afraid, literally, deathly afraid that they will lose their health care. That they will lose the ability to have pre-existing conditions and still get insurance. This is a very serious issue. And if Donald Trump wants to campaign on this, I think Democrats should welcome it,</s>BEGALA: Right, because it's not repeal and replace anymore. When you go to the courts -- the courts can't legislate, they can't create a better health care system. John has his ideas, mine are very different, that's what the legislative process is for. The judicial process, what the president is asking the courts to do is to throw 23 million people off their health care with nothing to replace it, to tell all of us that we have no right to health care if we commit the sin of having a pre-existing condition. Oh like say being a one, which was a pre-existing condition before Obamacare, women always had to pay more than guys. It is -- it is substantively a catastrophe and a really cruel thing to do, even if you have better ideas on health care, I don't think the president does, but he might. Take them to Congress. When you go to the courts, it's going to throw 23 million people out in the streets and all of us are going to lose our rights.</s>KEILAR: And this has been one of the -- Republicans have struggled with having a plan in place, an alternative, even as the president has promised to protect people with pre-existing conditions. That promise is not part of this plan before the courts.</s>POWERS: It's not a winning issue for Republicans because we saw in 2018, it was a winning issue for Democrats. But it's also not a winning issue for them because it's not something they ever talked about until Obamacare came around. So, even when they were in control of Congress, they weren't coming up with plans. They weren't coming up with plans to cover pre-existing conditions. They weren't coming up with plans to keep people on their health and parents health insurance until age of 26. They weren't coming up with plans to cap expenses. All they've done, all their plans have been about dismantling Obamacare. So, for them to come out and now claim, oh, well let's just let Obamacare go away and we'll take care of it -- it's like why would anybody believe that. They've never -- this has never been a priority for them no matter how much they talk about it, when push came to shove after voting to repeal it -- I lost track of how may times -- they didn't have a plan, right? So, it's like the -- so I think voters know that and they know that Democrats are the ones who are proactively running on this, as they did in 2018.</s>JAMES: Well, I would actually say, respectfully, not so fast. I think the American people have been lied to by both parties and Congress has failed all American people from both parties because there was a time that I remember, we were told if we liked our doctor, we can keep them. We like our health care, we can keep it. But you also have the Republican Party that says repeal and replace and it has nothing to replace it with. Both parties have failed the American people want health care.</s>JAMES: I believe that we need to fix the parts of ACA that work and then key -- and fix the parts of ACA that are that are broke and fix them, and they keep the parts --</s>NAVARRO: But you're not going to get that -- what you do is, you know, overturn it in the courts and the Trump administration cannot plead clean hands. This is their directive. This is their effort. This is their DOJ pushing for it to be overturned in the courts, and you have no plan in place. Here's the problem with Obamacare, a lot of people have issues with it, including me, you, but the American people, it's like that corn flake commercial. They like it. They like it.</s>NAVARRO: And so, try taking something away that people like, it's -- you know, putting that genie back in the bottle particularly when you don't have something immediately to show to the American people that you are ready to replace it with. You think a replacement of Obamacare could get passed with a Republican Senate a Democratic House and Donald Trump in the White House?</s>JAMES: Because the Congress is impotent and incompetent. Is there anybody who disagrees with that? It is the job of the legislature, the job of the Congress to pass legislation, to pass laws to take care of people, and they have failed the American people. And yes, I do believe that the Congress needs to step up because all these presidential candidates talking about all their plans, a lot of them have been in Congress for years and years and years. You have 70-year-olds talking about they want to do to change things to fix things. But what have you done --</s>NAVARRO: We're having a very rhetorical, theoretical talk here. Wait until the campaign trail and parents start showing up with kids that are dying, with kids that are terminally ill and who depend on this health care.</s>JAMES: You just heard me say that health care is of vital importance to all Americans.</s>NAVARRO: Right.</s>JAMES: We need to work together to get it done, and this falls on the legislature for not doing their job.</s>POWERS: But, actually, the Democrats weren't incompetent when it came to health care. They passed Obamacare. So -- and I actually wouldn't call Nancy Pelosi whatever --</s>POWERS: But hold on, it doesn't matter, it passed. And the point is, people want it to be improved. I actually have criticized a lot of parts of Obamacare. It has been problematic. And if you look at most polls, people say improve it, make it better, let's make some changes and do it.</s>JAMES: Right.</s>POWERS: But that's not the position of the Republicans. The position of the Republicans is to repeal it. So I think it's -- that this -- I don't even feel like what I'm saying is partisan, I just like I'm stating facts. This is what happened and voters know that. And they know that the people who are saying we want to make Obamacare better are the Democrats.</s>KEILAR: But to the point of it's unpopular -- it was unpopular when it was passed. Any changes to health care will be unpopular when passed that's the conundrum of Republicans. If you were to create an alternative, it very likely will not be popular. And it narrowly got through the Congress even with Democrats in control, which makes it increasingly difficult that a split Congress would be able to push something through.</s>BEGALA: What they're seeking -- I come back to this -- to the courts is a complete abolition. There's over 11 million Americans get their health care through the exchanges through Obamacare. There's 12.4 million Americans that get their health care through Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, and there's 250 million, how many, 320 million Americans who are protected by the pre-existing condition rules and other protections in Obamacare. This president, Donald Trump, America needs to know this, is going as far as he can possibly go to take your health care away and to take away your rights to free (ph) -- and replace it with nothing. You're on your own.</s>KEILAR: All right. So from who is that to trending on Google. The 2020 presidential candidate appearing to catch fire, next.