GOP Senators back Trump's demand – from his Florida golf club – to scrap Obamacare

During a record-breaking government closure, some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are busy this weekend on an unpopular piece of legislation

Senators in the US are putting in hours over the weekend for the first time since the government closed its doors over a month ago. However, the chances of a deal between both parties on how to end the deadlock, and ensure millions of Americans can afford healthcare, seemed to fade. Republican senators brought up an idea Democrats hate: getting rid of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as Obamacare.

The longest shutdown of the federal government in history has had a growing effect on Americans as Saturday arrived. Federal workers didn't get paid, airlines had to cancel flights, and 42 million Americans faced delays in their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits.

As Saturday's session began Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana liked an idea Donald Trump shared on social media early Saturday. Trump speaking from his golf course in West Palm Beach, suggested replacing subsidies with health savings accounts.

In a Truth Social post, Trump put forward the idea that Republicans should revisit their plan to replace the Obama-era law, which didn't succeed during his first term. This suggestion came as an alternative to meeting Democrats' demand to extend subsidies for health insurance plans bought through the ACA marketplace, to cover rising premiums.

"I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE," Trump wrote.

Graham liked the plan, which looks a lot like the Obamacare alternative he suggested in 2017. He wrote online that Trump's idea "to stop giving billions of dollars under Obamacare to greedy insurance companies and instead give that money straight to people so they can buy better healthcare is just amazing".

"We're going to swap this broken system with something that works better for people," Graham said later.

Cassidy, who helped write Graham's similar plan in 2017 also praised Trump's idea online. He stood next to a big blow-up of Trump's post as he talked on the Senate floor.

"I'm writing the bill right now," Scott replied to Trump's idea. "We need to stop taxpayer money from going to insurance companies and instead give it straight to Americans in HSA-style accounts and let them buy the health care they want. This will boost competition & lower costs."

No Republican senators seemed to tackle the fact that people would still need to buy plans from the same insurance companies, or that Republican lawmakers need eight Democrats to back them to reopen the government, and the plan to repeal and replace Obamacare with savings accounts won't get a single Democratic vote.