Is Trump's renewed attack on the Affordable Care Act a blessing in disguise for Democrats?

It's been more than a decade since then-President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, his signature legislative accomplishment, into law. Since then, Republicans in the House and Senate have spent years trying to repeal some, if not all, of the massive health care infrastructure that provided medical insurance coverage to more than 40 million Americans in 2023 alone, according to an estimate from the Department of Health and Human Services. After wielding their repeal efforts as a perennial campaign cudgel for the better part of the 2010s, the 2022 midterms elections were "the first [time] in more than a decade" Republicans didn't make erasing the ACA a tentpole issue, NBC News reported, citing the "diminished appetite" for that particular fight from a GOP resigned to the fact that Obamacare seems here to stay.

As the 2024 general elections ramp up in earnest however, the relative lull of 2022's ACA detente appears at risk of being labeled a fluke, as GOP frontrunner former President Donald Trump insists on making his predecessor's battle-tested legislation a campaign issue once again. Calling it "not good Healthcare," in a post on his Truth Social network this weekend, Trump claimed to be "seriously looking at alternatives" while urging fellow Republicans to "never give up!" on efforts to repeal the law.