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With Republican leaders pressing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, possibly within weeks, moderate Senate Democrats reached out on Thursday to Republicans, appealing for them to slow down the repeal efforts and let lawmakers try to find acceptable, bipartisan changes to make the existing law work better. Democrats also had new reason to hope for possible Republican defections after Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin said that the repeal measure would cut off federal funds for Planned Parenthood. But for now, Republican leaders are holding firm. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, denounced the law, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement, as “a lesson to future generations about how not to legislate.” (Kaplan and Pear, 1/5)

Senate Democrats are making a long-shot bid to Senate GOP leadership urging them to work with them to fix — rather than repeal — ObamaCare. Thirteen senators sent a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) arguing for improvements to the Affordable Care Act but warning that repealing the law would have "negative impacts."  "The American people deserve a constructive bipartisan conversation about improvements we know need to be made to our health care system, and that will require time for the two sides to work together," the Democrats wrote. (Carney, 1/5)

More than a dozen self-described moderate Senate Democrats sent a letter to top Republicans asking them not to repeal the Affordable Care Act and work with Democrats to fix the law. Led by Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, 13 Democrats wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) Thursday urging them to abandon plans to repeal Obamacare using a budget resolution and the reconciliation tool, and to instead work in a bipartisan manner to improve the health care law. (McIntire, 1/5)

President-elect Donald Trump showed signs Thursday of frustration with top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer even as he called for help from across the aisle in reshaping federal health care law. In a series of tweets, Trump described Schumer, who represents New York, as his party’s “head clown” and said that he knows the health-care law his party championed is in trouble. Schumer and other Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill Wednesday unveiled a new slogan they say encapsulates Republicans’ plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act: it would “make America sick again,” a play on Trump’s campaign slogan, “make America great again.” The name-calling between the two New Yorkers may be a sign of fractures in a relationship dating to the 1980s -- including a Schumer stint on Trump’s reality show, “The Apprentice.” (Epstein, 1/5)

President-elect Donald J. Trump lashed out at Democrats on Thursday over their efforts to preserve President Obama’s health care coverage law, insulting their top legislative leader and denouncing the measure as a “lie” as he called for a less expensive and more effective system. “The Democrats, lead by head clown Chuck Schumer, know how bad ObamaCare is and what a mess they are in,” Mr. Trump wrote in the first of three early-morning posts on Twitter. (Hirschfeld Davis, 1/5)