Democrats and the President step up the fight for Obamacare
President Obama meets Democratic colleagues as time ticks on attempts to save his landmark healthcare reforms from Donald Trump.
Wednesday 4 January 2017 22:08, UK
Repealing and replacing Obamacare was always a sure-fire crowd pleaser at Trump's campaign rallies.
Now his Vice President-elect, Mike Pence, says fulfilling that promise is top of their agenda.
Top Democrats are demanding to know how and with what.
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi turned Trump's catchphrase on its head by questioning whether the Republicans were trying to "make America sick again" by destroying the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The law is a pillar of President Obama's legacy.
He was also on Capitol Hill today - for the first time in almost a year - to try to save it.
His aim is to motivate Democratic lawmakers to fight for Obamacare, which has extended healthcare coverage to the 15% of Americans who were previously uncovered.
The ACA means companies with 50 or more employees have to provide insurance - one of the main gripes Republicans have.
They say it imposes too much cost on small businesses and have made several unsuccessful attempts to end the act.
They've had less to say about what they will replace Obamacare with and, crucially, what will happen to the 20 million Americans who now have health insurance because of it.
It is not clear what the Republicans are proposing.
When Trump was first elected he even suggested he might keep parts of the law, but now he seems less open to cooperation with the outgoing administration.
President Obama insists voters will punish the Republicans if they do go ahead and repeal the act, which they are united in their disdain for.
But an issue that continues to divide the GOP is Trump's behaviour towards Russia and his continued dismissal of what has become the consensus view in the intelligence community.
The Obama administration says it is "100% certain" that Russia interfered with the 2016 election.
Donald Trump continues to dismiss the idea, apparently giving more credence to the views of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
In an interview with Fox News, Assange repeated his assertion that Russia was not the source of the hacked emails.
In response, Trump tweeted: "Julian Assange said 'a 14-year-old could have hacked Podesta' - why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!"
Trump is being urged to exercise some caution - if he himself becomes the victim of hacking then his current stance would be a tricky one to row back from.