President Trump wants to seize the health care mantle from Democrats ahead of the 2020 election by highlighting actions he says will lower costs and challenge special interests.

Trump is touting a series of actions on drug pricing and other consumer-friendly issues, a move designed to position the president as a populist champion of transparency and reduced medical bills.

But the president faces an uphill battle, as Democrats won’t let voters forget his record on health care, including repeated efforts to repeal and undermine ObamaCare.

Earlier this week, he issued an executive order that would force hospitals, insurers and doctors to disclose their prices upfront.

The executive order seeks to bring more transparency to the health care system and could shine a light on opaque price negotiations. The administration argues that will drive down costs because it would empower patients to shop around for the best prices, though some critics argue it could have the opposite effect.

If patients know the costs of health care services up front, the White House argues, it could help prevent surprise medical bills, which are increasingly becoming a source of anxiety for Americans.

GOP strategist Ford O’Connell said Trump can argue that he alone is trying to lower health costs, because Democrats are preventing Congress from acting.

“His goal is very simple: Convince voters he wants to protect pre-existing condition protections, and drive down costs,” O’Connell said. “Trump knows he’s behind on the issue.”

O’Connell added that right now, it doesn’t even matter if the administration’s efforts succeed.

“He is building a narrative. It’s great if costs come down, but that’s not the focus,” O’Connell said.

Read more from Nathaniel Weixel and Jessie Hellman at The Hill

Seven years after Obamacare crushed Democrats at the ballot box, the party is using health care to launch a revival, saying President Trump and congressional Republicans are paying a price for their fumbled repeal effort and will sink further next year.

Voters in Maine last week opted into Medicaid expansion, a key plank of the 2010 law, and Virginia voters pointed to health care as they swatted aside Mr. Trump’s endorsement of the Republican candidate for governor and chose Democrats up and down the ballot.

Meanwhile, Obamacare is polling better than ever, enrollments are outpacing last year’s and progressive groups are plotting to turn the fight over Obamacare into electoral wins, blanketing social media and selling $25 T-shirts and $15 coffee mugs to anyone who pledges to be a “Health Care Voter.”

It’s a major turnabout from 2010, when President Obama’s heavy mandates and D.C.-centric reforms sparked talk of “death panels” and a “government takeover” of health care.

Some Republicans say Democrats are boasting much too early.

Virginia has become a reliably blue state over the past decade, and it’s not as susceptible to economic swings because of federal jobs in the northern part of the state, so Mr. Trump’s populist message didn’t resonate as much as in other states, said Republican Party strategist Ford O’Connell.

“Democrats would be wise to not overinterpret what happened last week in the commonwealth,” he said. “Heading into 2018 midterms, overall health care is not the political liability it once was for Democrats. That said, the 2018 Senate map is decidedly pro-Trump and anti-Obamacare.”

Despite a positive Senate map, Mr. O’Connell said, health care might be a liability for some House Republicans next year, particularly in the Northeast, so the party will need a near-perfect replacement to get something through the Senate and fully change the narrative.

Read more from Tom Howell Jr. at The Washington Times

When Republicans swept last November’s elections, the sky appeared to be the limit. Obamacare would be repealed and replaced. The tax system would be overhauled. American infrastructure would at last get a major infusion of cash.

All of this may yet happen, but promises of speedy change haven’t materialized. Health-care reform is stalled in the Senate, and the details of tax reform are still on the drawing board. Then there’s President Trump, who has complicated efforts to revive health reform by suggesting “repeal first, replace later” – a stark turnabout from his pledge to do both at once.

And in eye-popping fashion, Mr. Trump has sucked the oxygen away from policy altogether since last Thursday with sensational tweets attacking the media personalities and outlets – most recently a video of Trump body-slamming a “CNN” avatar.

But it’s congressional Republicans whose credibility is on the line, foremost. After eight years of Barack Obama, and years of symbolic votes to undo the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they now have an ally in the White House – one who is eager to sign major legislation.

Since Trump won the presidency, “the Republican Party, particularly in Congress, has not understood that their job is to govern,” says GOP strategist Ford O’Connell. “And when you govern, sometimes you have to man up and walk the plank.”

That means voting for legislation you don’t love, and that may even cost some members reelection. And for both leaders and rank-and-file members, it means developing the “muscle memory” of legislative give-and-take – not just on symbolic measures, but also on bills that could become law.

Read more from Linda Feldmann at The Christian Science Monitor 

For six years, Democrats taunted Republicans for holding dozens of votes to repeal Obamacare without rallying around a legislative alternative, while Republicans saw little need to craft and vote on a plan that President Obama would kill with his veto pen.

Yet now it’s Democrats who enter the debate without a clear plan, left to defend a law that has fallen far short of its goals and was shedding insurers and failing to win over customers even before President Trump took office.

Though they say they will help solve the problems plaguing the law, Democrats have yet to settle on an alternative to the Republicans’ repeal. Some say there is no need to bother right now, while others said it would be nice to try.

Still, some Republicans say Democrats aren’t serious about reforming the private insurance market, but rather expanding the federal role in health care.

“Their plan is socialized medicine for all,” Republican Party strategist Ford O’Connell said. “They have no incentive whatsoever to do anything. When the individual market tanks, they’ll say the Republicans were in control.”

Read more from Tom Howell Jr. at the Washington Times

From Investor's Business Daily:

ObamaCare's subsidized insurance exchanges are supposed to be up and running in little more than a year, putting a key piece of the federal health care law into action.

But it's unclear that will happen, especially with a growing number of states saying they don't want the cost and regulatory headaches.

 

From The Washington Post:

More Americans think Supreme Court justices will be acting mainly on their partisan political views than on a neutral reading of the law when they decide the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care law, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Half of the public expects the justices to rule mainly based on their “partisan political views,” while fewer, 40 percent, expect their decisions to be rooted primarily “on the basis of the law.” The rest say both equally or do not have an opinion.

No one will know until June how the Supreme Court will rule on President Obama's Affordable Care Act. What we do know is there are three possible outcomes -- the law is upheld, struck down or struck down in part -- and Republicans must be prepared for each.

If the law, also known as "ObamaCare," is struck down -- in whole or in part -- and the GOP is not prepared, it could find itself on the losing end of a vicious battle that could lead to four more years of Democratic control of the White House and perhaps Congress as well.

For most Americans, health care is like plumbing: They know they need it; they don't truly know how it works, but they definitely know when it's not working. And they sense now health care is not working, and the health care law -- flawed though it may be -- represents a legitimate attempt to fix it.

There is no doubt health care will remain a highly volatile issue in this election year. If ObamaCare is rejected by the court, it would present a huge opportunity for Republicans. They could look like problem-solvers by coming up with a smart proposal that takes the best ideas from the other side. And if they can message it properly, they'll be in a sweet spot.

Read more from Ford O'Connell at CNN

President Obama’s Supreme Court jabs were so venomous that they even managed to jar liberal Washington Post opinion writer Ruth Marcus from her usual "Obasma." Enough said.

Read more from Ford O'Connell at Politico's "The Arena"

Two years ago, Nancy Pelosi bet the House on health care and lost.

No one was more instrumental in passage of the Affordable Care Act, and no one paid a bigger political price. If the Supreme Court in June rules the law unconstitutional in whole or in part, the San Francisco Democrat and now House minority leader will have lost not only her speakership but also much or all of her largest legacy.

Still, Pelosi did not leave the majority before sprinkling defensive land mines throughout the sprawling legislation that might make Republicans careful what they wish for. Democrats made sure that the law's most popular parts would kick in first, and the least popular last.

The much-despised mandate requiring everyone to buy health insurance, the core of the GOP challenge to the law, is not scheduled to begin until 2014.

Since enactment of the health care law in 2010, Republicans have rallied behind "repeal and replace." If the court repeals the law for them, the burden would shift abruptly to the more difficult "replace" part, putting the onus on Republicans to fix failures in health care itself rather than failures in the Democratic law.

"Health care is a lot like plumbing: People know they need it, they just don't know what it entails," said GOP strategist Ford O'Connell. Striking down the law would be "a victory, but it's a victory that comes at the cost of saying, 'OK, this is not good, let me tell you what's better.' "

Read more from Carolyn Lochhead at the San Francisco Chronicle

Does ObamaCare know best? Apparently not. From ABC News' Greg Holyk:

Two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. Supreme Court should throw out either the individual mandate  in the federal health care law or the law in its entirety,  signaling the depth of public disagreement with that  element of  the Affordable Care Act.

This ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that Americans oppose the law overall by 52-41 percent. And 67 percent believe  the high court should either ditch the  law or at least the portion that requires nearly all Americans to have coverage.

The high court opens hearings on the law’s constitutionality a week from today.