The Trump administration touched off another politically charged battle over the future of Obamacare with its latest maneuver to dismantle the law amid a pandemic — a move that Democrats immediately weaponized for competitive campaigns this fall and few Republicans defended…

Republican officials and strategists working on competitive campaigns were privately aghast Friday at the administration’s decision to reignite the issue, particularly as health care is at the forefront of voters’ minds because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic…

Collins, in a statement Friday, said the Justice Department arrived at the “wrong conclusion” in its argument in court, saying it was never the intent of lawmakers to repeal the entire health care law when the Republican-controlled Congress got rid of its individual mandate through the 2017 tax cut bill.

“The administration’s decision to submit this new brief is the wrong policy at the worst possible time as our nation is in the midst of a pandemic,” Collins said in a statement to The Washington Post. “The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land, and it is the Department of Justice’s duty to defend it.”