Hospital lobby skips repeal battle, focuses on ACA replacement

Hospitals have spent six years promoting the benefits of Obamacare’s sweeping health reforms, but the powerful Washington lobbying isn’t coming to the law’s rescue.

Hospitals are steering well clear of the battle over repeal, seeing Obamacare’s unwinding as an inevitable conclusion after Donald Trump’s election. They are instead laying the groundwork for the high-stakes debate that comes next: the Obamacare replacement.

The focus on replacement, rather than fighting repeal itself, has disheartened some Democrats who hoped the hospital lobby would throw its considerable weight behind Obamacare....