The failure of Trumpcare last week, amid opposition from Republican moderates and extremists in the House of Representatives, is certainly a sigh of relief for Obamacare supporters and the millions of Americans who rely on the law. But as the New Republic’s Brian Beutler wrote on Tuesday, “ACA supporters shouldn’t become complacent simply because a Republican health care bill is not going to become law anytime soon. Republican opposition to Obamacare is about to become more dishonorable than at any point since Obama signed it seven years ago.”

No sooner was that column published than Republicans indicated they might yet attempt to pass the American Health Care Act, which House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled from the floor after realizing he didn’t have the votes to pass it. The New York Times reported Tuesday that “Republican leaders and the White House, under extreme pressure from conservative activists, have restarted negotiations on legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act.” And according to The Washington Post, the White House has reached out to Democrats in search of compromise legislation.

These are likely dead ends, leaving the Republicans to move ahead with their simplest route to replacing Obamacare: to sabotage the law administratively, then push for changes after it falls apart. On Saturday, stung by the AHCA’s failure, Trump tweeted:

ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017

But Obamacare won’t “explode” on its own unless he lights the fuse. As Greg Sargent notes at The Washington Post, Trump’s plan seems to be to “allow the law to collapse, or even further undermine it through executive action, and pin the blame for the resulting human toll on Democrats. As it happens, Trump does have the tools to inflict immense damage on the Affordable Care Act and hurt a lot of people in the process.” Doing so would deprive millions of health care, including many Trump supporters.



Even if we take Trump’s statement as fact—that Obamacare is flawed and will collapse on its own—it would be a remarkable dereliction of duty. Trump is the president, and his party controls Congress. If Obamacare is so flawed, Republicans have a responsibility to fix it, or to replace it with a humane alternative. To simply wait for the ACA to “explode” would be to knowingly doom countless Americans to uncertainty about one of the most fundamental matters in life: their health.