Obama's health care law -- NYTimes

Congress opened for battle over the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday as Republicans pushed immediately forward to repeal the health care law and President Obama made a rare trip to Capitol Hill to defend it.

He said that President-elect Donald J. Trump would use his executive authority to help make the transition away from the health care law, but did not offer specifics.

...has been his legacy, how he will be treated by... SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Republicans are using a procedural approach that will allow them to repeal substantial parts of the health care law without Democrats’ being able to mount a filibuster in the Senate.

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By a vote of 51 to 48 on Wednesday, the Senate took the first step, agreeing to take up a budget resolution, or blueprint, that would clear the way for legislation repealing major provisions of the law.

As Republicans charged ahead, both sides seemed cognizant of the possible fallout from unwinding the law, which has become deeply enmeshed with America’s health care system and has provided insurance for about 20 million people.

As Republicans charged ahead, both sides seemed cognizant of the possible fallout from unwinding the law, which has become deeply enmeshed with America’s health care system and has provided insurance for about 20 million people.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, noted that it had taken six years to get into “the ditch we find ourselves in now.”

To that, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, parried that when a car goes into a ditch, “the first thing I don’t do is dismantle the car.”

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The president provided an array of arguments for keeping the Affordable Care Act and offered a mild mea culpa for his shortcomings as a salesman over the years.

Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, said, “He acknowledged the failures in selling the law in its entirety to the American people.”