Donald Trump spent much of his first presidential campaign and his first year in office railing against “Obamacare” and vowing to “repeal and replace” it with the help of the Republican-controlled Congress that followed him into office after he defeated former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2016.
But after late Arizona senator John McCain doomed the Senate’s effort to repeal the legislation with a now-iconic “thumbs down” during a late night vote in August 2017, the president and his allies had to settle for the consolation prize of eliminating the tax penalty charged to Americans who failed to carry sufficient health coverage under the terms of the 2010 law.
