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The Trump administration’s decision to ask a federal appeals court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act has given House Democrats a new opening to pursue what they see as a winning political strategy: moving past talk of impeachment to put kitchen-table issues like health care front and center. The notice to the court, filed late Monday by the Justice Department, could not have come at a more opportune time for Democrats. The finding by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, that there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, dashed the hopes of the most partisan Democrats that the House would impeach the president. (Stolberg and Pear, 3/26)

“We’ve never taken our focus off the for-the-people agenda,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) told reporters on Tuesday after meeting with the Democratic caucus. She said the party would push to lower the cost of health care, build infrastructure and clean up government. Rep. James Clyburn (D., S.C.), the House majority whip, appeared to go a step further. “I believe that the Mueller report has been done. It’s a chapter that’s closed,” Mr. Clyburn said. Pointing to a filing by the Justice Department late Monday that asked a court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Clyburn said health care is “the No. 1 thing on people’s minds.” (Hughes and Peterson, 3/26)

In a new court filing, the Justice Department argued that the ACA, also known as Obamacare, should be thrown out in its entirety, including provisions protecting millions of Americans with preexisting health conditions and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health-care plans. President Trump praised the move during a lunch with Senate Republicans, and suggested the GOP should embrace a new congressional battle over health-care policy ahead of the 2020 elections. “Let me tell you exactly what my message is: The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of health care,” he told reporters before the lunch. “You watch.” (Olorunnipa and Kim, 3/26)

Democrats said the move to overturn Obamacare would overshadow Republican President Donald Trump's claim of victory following the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The legal filing gave Democrats a natural opening to focus on an issue they say is more important to voters than the Mueller investigation. "We always felt that the issues that affect average Americans - healthcare, climate change, jobs - (are) far more important to them, and to us, than what happens in an investigation," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. (3/26)

"This is something that Americans care deeply about," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a White House hopeful. "I may not have been asked about the Mueller report at town hall meetings, but I was sure asked about health care." Other Democrats appeared to relish the chance to shift to health care. Asked if the Trump administration's court filing allowed Democrats to turn the page on Mueller, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would have been talking about health care no matter what. "We have been dealing with health care constantly," the California Democrat said. "The public attention has been on the Mueller report, but we have been focused on health care." (3/26)

The House plans to vote on the bill this year, positioning it as a follow-through on campaign promises to defend ObamaCare. (Hellmann, 3/26)

House Democrats, highlighting the differences between their positions and the administration’s, unveiled draft legislation Tuesday that seeks to lower health care costs for people who get insurance coverage through the federal and state marketplaces. The unnumbered draft bill builds on Democrats' 2018 campaign message that they would protect coverage for pre-existing conditions and increase the financial assistance people receive under the law. Top Democrats on Tuesday indicated they hope to keep that focus ahead of the 2020 election, setting up a contrast with the Trump administration after it broadened its call to weaken the law by saying that all of it — not just part of it — should fall. (McIntire, 3/26)

In a closed-door lunch with the senators, the president issued a vague call to them to address healthcare to lower costs, according to several lawmakers in the room. “He led off on that and he spent a good bit of time on it. It’s clearly on his mind, and it’s clear to me he wants us to take another run on it,” said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. “I thought that he’d immediately start talking about the Mueller report or China,” the country at the center of Trump’s trade agenda. (Bierman, Haberkorn and Levey, 3/26)

For the GOP, it shifted the political discussion from a more welcome storyline about the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe to health care — the issue Democrats believe helped them win back the House majority last fall. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) deflected a question about the ObamaCare case at his leadership press conference and told reporters to call his office. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office had no immediate comment. (Sullivan, 3/27)

Kaiser Health News: Trump Administration And Democrats Return Health Law To Political Center Stage

Trump has repeatedly called for the law to be repealed and replaced, but when Republicans controlled Congress they could not muster the necessary votes. Just last week, the president lashed out Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died in August, for failing to support that effort. (Rovner, 3/26)

The Trump administration’s surprising move to invalidate Obamacare on Monday came despite the opposition of two key cabinet secretaries: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Attorney General Bill Barr. Driving the dramatic action were the administration’s domestic policy chief, Joe Grogan, and the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the decision. Both are close allies of White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who helped to engineer the move. (Johnson and Everett, 3/26)

The Affordable Care Act was already in peril after a federal judge in Texas invalidated the entire law late last year. But the stakes ramped up again this week, when President Trump’s Justice Department announced it had changed its position and agreed with the judge that the entire law, not just three pieces of it, should be scrapped. A coalition of states is appealing the ruling. If it is upheld, tens of millions more people would be affected than those who already rely on the nine-year-old law for health insurance. Also known as Obamacare, the law touches the lives of most Americans, from nursing mothers to people eating at chain restaurants. (Abelson, Goodnough and Pear, 3/26)

The failure by Republicans to overturn the Affordable Care Act has been a sore point for the president. In recent weeks, Trump has taken to Twitter to attack the late Senator John McCain, who in 2017 cast the decisive vote against a bill packaged as a “skinny repeal” of the health law. The following year, Republicans lost control of the House, as many Democrats campaigned on a promises to shield Obamacare from its GOP critics. (Tozzi and Wasson, 3/26)

In a filing Monday with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Justice Department said it agreed with 15 Republican attorneys general that the elimination of the “individual mandate,” the requirement that most Americans have health insurance, invalidated the entire ACA. That was a surprising shift in policy for the Trump administration, which had argued in a brief in June that the tax penalty for not buying insurance — repealed by Congress in a federal tax overhaul — was legally distinct from other provisions of the law, which could still stand. (Radelat and Carlesso, 3/26)

Even as it seeks to have the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional, the Trump administration on Monday reported that about 11.4 million people signed up for coverage in 2019 on the act’s state- and federally run exchanges. That represents a dip from about 11.8 million in 2018, defying fears of a more precipitous drop after the Trump Administration cut promotion and outreach efforts and Congress eliminated the tax penalty for not having coverage. (Margolies, 3/26)