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Senior House Democrats on Monday extolled the benefits of President Barack Obama's health care law in hopes of derailing Republican plans to gut the statute and over time replace it. In a conference call with reporters, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the GOP will begin its "assault" on the health care law when the 115th Congress convenes Tuesday. She said abolishing the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, as Republicans have promised will mean that people will pay more for their health insurance while getting much less than they do now. Undoing the law also will undermine Medicaid and Medicare, she said. (Lardner, 1/2)

Top House Democrats gave more clues Monday about how they’ll fight GOP efforts to repeal ObamaCare, sharing enrollment figures and stories about Americans saved by the health care law, ahead of President Obama’s visit Wednesday. ... [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi and [House Minority Whip Steny] Hoyer argued that at least 20 million Americans would lose their health insurance, in part subsidized by the federal government, and chided Republicans for having no immediate plan to replace the law, more formally known as the Affordable Care Act. “Understand, repeal and delay is an act of cowardice,” said Pelosi, D-Calif. (Emanuel, 1/2)

Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has promised to stand firm against repeal efforts and subsequently, Republican efforts to replace the Affordable Care Act with a more conservative framework. And a conference call convened by House Democrats earlier this week focused largely on emphasizing the benefits of Obamacare, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) noting that she sees parallels between the current situation and the 2005 effort by then-President George W. Bush to privatize Social Security, according to an aide on the call. (Kim, 12/30)

Obama will hold a joint meeting with House and Senate Democrats at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the Capitol Visitor Center auditorium. The notice for the meeting says the session is expected to last "at least one hour." The White House said Obama will use the meeting to "share his perspective about the dangers posed by Congressional Republicans’ stated strategy to repeal the [Affordable Care Act] before proposing any replacement, creating chaos in the health system in the short run — and holding hostage Americans’ health care — while Republicans develop their plan."  (Sullivan, 12/30)

Obama also planned to answer questions about the future of the health care law next Friday during a livestreamed event at Blair House, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. Initially stunned by the defeat of Hillary Clinton, Democrats are now trying to organize a counter-attack to preserve the ACA, among the most significant expansions of the social safety net since Medicare and Medicaid were created 50 years ago. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has urged her lawmakers to make health care their focus at the start of the year. (Lederman, 12/30)

Democratic congressional leaders and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have called for a Jan. 15 “Day of Action” to oppose any cuts to health-care plans or subsidies from the incoming Trump presidential administration, the latest example of the Vermont senator pushing his (briefly) adopted party toward more activism. (Weigel, 12/28)