Midterm voters gave Democrats a mandate to protect the Affordable Care Act, NBC political director Chuck Todd said Wednesday.
The moderator of "Meet The Press" sees President Donald Trump working with Democrats on health care as "more possible than people realize."
"We've litigated Obamacare so much that I think the president could get away with, 'OK,' and sort of [seek] the modified version of it," Todd said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" the morning after the election.
In a possible sign of some common ground, the president said in a recent "Axios on HBO" interview that he would reinstate protections on pre-existing conditions if a lawsuit against the ACA, supported by his administration, were successful in striking down them down.
As expected, Democrats won control of the House in Tuesday's election, while Republicans kept their majority in the Senate.
"Democrats got control of the House. They have one mandate that I think voters sent them," Todd said. "They better figure out how to protect pre-existing conditions."
Republicans have been trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act ever since it was signed into law by then-President Barack Obama in 2010 as his signature domestic achievement.
So far, the GOP has been unsuccessful in coming up with an alternative, even in Trump's first two years in office when Republicans controlled the House and the Senate.