There’s a moment in the Broadway musical Hamilton where George Washington says to an exasperated Alexander Hamilton: “Winning is easy, young man. Governing’s harder.”
When it comes to health care, it seems that President Trump is learning that same lesson. Trump and Republicans in Congress are struggling with how to keep their double-edged campaign promise — to repeal Obamacare without leaving millions of people without health insurance.
During the campaign, Trump promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act immediately upon taking office. Last month, in an interview with The Washington Post, he said he had a replacement law “very much formulated down to the final strokes.”
But on Sunday, he dialed back those expectations in an interview with Fox News.
“It’s in the process and maybe it will take till sometime into next year, but we are certainly going to be in the process. It’s very complicated,” Trump said.
He repeated his claim that Obamacare has been “a disaster” and said his replacement would be a “wonderful plan” that would take time “statutorily” to put in place. And then he hedged the timing again.
“I would like to say by the end of the year, at least the rudiments,” he said.
Trump’s recent hesitation comes as Republicans in Congress tame their rhetoric surrounding the health care law.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate health committee, said he’d like to see lawmakers make fixes to the current individual market before repealing parts of the law.
“We can repair the individual market, which is a good place to start,” Alexander said on Feb. 1.
HENRY KOTULA 