Former President Donald Trump has promised to take another crack at repealing Obamacare if he gets voted back into office next year.
But a push in 2025 to eliminate former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare
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law could flop for the same reason that Trump’s 2017 effort on that front failed: a slim Senate majority for Republicans.
While Democrats have a 51-seat edge in the 100-seat chamber right now, Republicans look likely to take control of the Senate in the November 2024 elections, with one betting market giving them an 80% chance of becoming the majority party. Democrats are defending eight Senate seats rated as competitive or solidly Republican by Cook Political Report, while GOP incumbents face much easier paths to victory. Cook’s Jessica Taylor has said Democrats may need to do “the equivalent of pitching a perfect game” in baseball if they want to stay in charge of the upper chamber of Congress.
Even with a GOP majority in the Senate in 2025, however, there could be enough Republican senators who side with Democrats and vote to preserve Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act. That’s what happened in 2017, when GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John McCain of Arizona blocked Trump’s repeal effort. McCain died in 2018, but Collins and Murkowski remain in office, and Collins recently told reporters that she didn’t think a full repeal would happen, though she would be open to improving the 2010 healthcare law.
From MarketWatch’s archives (2017): ‘Skinny’ repeal of Obamacare fails to pass in late-night Senate vote
What’s more, Republicans could lose control of the House in next year’s elections, and Democrats would block any repeal effort if they’re running that chamber. Democrats are favored to win a House majority in betting markets such as Smarkets, as well as in analyses by media outlets such as Axios, New York magazine and U.S. News.
Related: House financial panel chief McHenry won’t seek re-election, as Democrats could win control of chamber next year
Trump’s vow to abolish the ACA in late November left Republican senators “caught off guard” because they “know that Obamacare is popular with their constituents,” Greg Valliere, chief U.S. policy strategist at AGF Investments, said in a recent note. Most Republicans in Congress “have no alternatives and have absolutely no desire to revisit the issue,” he added.
Many Democrats viewed Trump’s comments as an “unforced error” that President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign can exploit, Valliere said. Biden and his allies have in fact proceeded to hammer Trump on the issue, through speeches and campaign ads.
See: Biden blasts Trump over revived push to kill Obamacare: ‘We won’t let these things happen’
Trump made his fresh pledge to eliminate Obamacare in a social-media post on Nov. 25. The front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary wrote: “The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare. I’m seriously looking at alternatives. We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!”
Now read: As Biden touts his Inflation Reduction Act, analysts size up how Trump might repeal it
And see: Here’s how the Republican presidential candidates say they’ll tackle student debt
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