The nation’s hospital industry warned President-elect Donald Trump and congressional leaders on Tuesday that repealing the Affordable Care Act could cost hospitals $165 billion by the middle of the next decade and trigger “an unprecedented public health crisis.”

The largest lobbying group for health insurers has asked U.S. lawmakers weighing the fate of Obamacare to push back the due date for 2018 individual insurance submissions to regulators in hopes of obtaining greater clarity on the program's future later on.

As the Republican-led Congress and the President-elect Donald J. Trump call for the repeal of the federal health care law known as Obamacare, insurance exchanges in Maryland and around the country continue to sign people up for coverage at a pace that could make it a banner year.

Republicans united in their desire to overturn the Affordable Care Act are divided over whether to replace it before or after the 2018 elections, a choice that holds political peril either way.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday the Senate will move to repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare law shortly after Jan. 1, but declined to give a timeline for a plan to replace it.

Penny Gentieu did not intend to phone 308 physicians in six different insurance plans when she started shopping for 2017 health coverage.