US President Donald Trump has said he wants to wait until after the 2020 election to draft a new healthcare plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.
The move reverses Mr Trump’s call last week to quickly scrap ex-President Obama’s signature law, which surprised some Republicans in Congress.
It comes as the justice department backed a lawsuit aiming to strike down the healthcare law as unconstitutional.
At least 20 million people could lose health coverage if the law is scrapped.
It is unclear with what Republicans would replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, if the courts rule to abolish the law before the 2020 presidential election.
In a series of tweets on Monday evening, Mr Trump wrote that a “vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win back the House”
Many political pundits say that healthcare was a galvanising issue for Democrats, who won control of the House of Representatives, during the mid-term elections in 2018.
The president’s decision comes a week after he called for an immediate replacement to the existing law, declaring the Republican Party would be “the party of healthcare”.
Mr Trump met Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, some of whom later said the White House did not offer any plan for a new law during their talks.
“Do we have a plan? What’s our plan?” Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said after their meeting.
“He didn’t offer a plan,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida also said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is up for re-election in 2020, told reporters: “I look forward to seeing what the president is proposing and what he can work out with the speaker.”
The announcement followed the Department of Justice decision to back a federal judge’s December ruling that found all of Obamacare unconstitutional.
The move was seen as a dramatic reversal, as the White House had previously only called for stripping the law of some provisions.
On Wednesday, former White House legislative affairs director Marc Short, who is currently working for Vice-President Mike Pence, told CNN that “the president will be putting forward plans this year” to replace Obamacare.
Republicans had attempted to “repeal and replace” Obamacare on several occasions in 2017 when Mr Trump’s party controlled both chambers of Congress, but failed after Republicans were unable to reach a consensus over what law should replace it.
Eliminating Obamacare has long been on the Republican party’s wishlist, and was a key campaign promise from Mr Trump.
