ELECTION/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/OBAMACARE/PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump’s vague platitudes about “beautiful” and “very special” health care for everybody are not going to cut it in his 2020 re-election race — after he was left exposed on the most urgent issue in American politics. An ill-timed move by the Justice Department to back the invalidation of the entire Affordable Care Act offered a huge opening to Democrats and inadvertently revealed a gaping political vulnerability for Trump on Tuesday [3-26-19]. The sudden pile on by Democratic presidential candidates over the controversy, and the hurried scramble by Trump and his aides to clean it up, offered an eloquent forecast of just how important health care will be in 2020. A court fight led by Republican attorneys general that precipitated the Justice Department policy shift could cause devastation in the health care market place and hit real-life coverage benefits for millions. It could also explode into the most heated months of the 2020 presidential showdown if Obamacare’s fate — for the third time — ends up before its previous savior, Chief Justice John Roberts and his Supreme Court. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway tried the first damage control Tuesday on an issue suddenly rocking Washington, insisting that Trump’s budget would preserve coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions.”
–Stephen Collinson, “Why Obamacare’s return puts Trump in big political hole,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, March 26, 2019 9:22 am