I spent the past few weeks up to my ears in Medical Loss Ratio analyses, so a lot of ACA/healthcare developments slipped by or got backlogged. There were stories which are technically separate but which are pretty obviously joined at the hip...and the fact that they both came out right on top of each other is pretty telling.
The Health 202: White House may have given up on health plan it says it is writing
A former White House staffer and several congressional aides and activists say they’ve been told the Trump administration has moved away from seeking an Obamacare replacement and is instead focused on damage control should a judge rule next month to topple the entire law.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans could try again to repeal Obamacare if they win enough seats in U.S. elections next month, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday, calling a failed 2017 push to repeal the healthcare law a “disappointment.”
...except that the headline understates what McConnell actually said:
...On Nov. 6, Americans will vote for candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives.
McConnell’s Republicans now hold majority control of both chambers. Democrats will try to wrest control in races for all 435 House seats and one-third of the 100 Senate seats.
Despite their dominance of Congress and the White House, Republicans dramatically failed last year to overturn former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, known as Obamacare. McConnell called it “the one disappointment of this Congress from a Republican point of view.”
Time and opportunity still exist to replace Obamacare.
...I reported in January that a number of conservative groups, under the leadership of former Sen. Rick Santorum, was working hard to craft a new Obamacare replacement...Behind the scenes, those groups...have continued to meet and tweak their plan, and they seem just a few weeks away from being able to unveil it.
...I listened in on a March 21 conference call among numerous interested parties, and received further updates within the past week from Santorum.
