President Obama has urged Democrats to protect the Affordable Care Act from Republican efforts to repeal it.
The Huffington Post reported that Obama, on his last visit to Capitol Hill, sought to rally his party to do whatever it can to thwart them, despite the terrible odds. “Despite the negativity, you have a big chunk of the country that wants this thing to succeed,” Obama said, according to a person who attended the meeting with House and Senate Democrats. “That the country is clamoring to undo this thing is simply untrue.”
Democratic leaders emerged from that session proclaiming they’re unified in their opposition to repeal, unified in their zeal to resist and unified in their refusal to help Republicans devise new health care reforms until they see the GOP’s opening bid at an Obamacare “replacement” ― something that Republicans have failed to produce during the eight years since the Affordable Care Act debate began.
“They want to repeal it and then try to hang it on us. Not going to happen. It’s their responsibility, plain and simple,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference following the meeting with the president.
“They’re going to own it,” Schumer said. “All the problems in the health care system are going to be on their back.”
