Killing Obamacare Softly

Unable — at least so far — to kill the Affordable Care Act outright, the Trump administration has conducted a sustained war of attrition designed to inflict fatal damage on Obamacare.

This war, often operating below the radar, entails the use of a quintessentially conservative strategy, and the cooperation of Congressional Republicans. In a way, it’s pretty simple: You cut the budget, impose debilitating regulations, track the subsequent missteps and then attack the program as a failure. …

“The best thing politically is to let Obamacare explode,” Trump told The Washington Post on March 24. The program is “totally the property of the Democrats” so that “when people get a 200 percent increase next year or a 100 percent or 70 percent, that’s their fault.”

Survey data suggests that Trump may be wrong about whom the public would blame. CONT.

Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times