For months now, Washington, D.C., has waited on Donald Trump to broker a bipartisan deal to address the expiration of Obamacare subsidies that is producing skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket costs for the more than 20 million Americans who rely on these policies for their health insurance. He hasn’t been very helpful, even though the issue played a major role in triggering the longest government shutdown in history. Conservatives almost uniformly hate (or pretend to hate) Obamacare itself, so Republicans need cover from their president in order to accept a compromise that would extend the subsidies in exchange for some concessions on who receives them. Instead, Trump has fed partisan flames by launching his own attacks on Obamacare while demanding ancient right-wing health-care panaceas like increased health-savings accounts.

This week, Trump has an outstanding opportunity to promote a deal by saying something nice about the pending legislation that would extend subsidies for three years, which is very likely to pass the House with at least some Republican support. Instead, in a long, rambling speech to House Republicans on Tuesday, Trump quadrupled down on a conservative “solution” for rising health-care costs. But then, incredibly, he told his troops they needed to be “flexible” about the new abortion restrictions nearly all Republicans have long demanded with respect to Obamacare policies. So Trump won’t articulate or support an actual deal, but he’s suggesting that if some........

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