Health bill’s failure deals blow to Trump, GOP
Staff/wire report
WASHINGTON
In a humiliating failure, President Donald Trump and GOP leaders yanked their bill to repeal “Obamacare” off the House floor Friday when it became clear it would fail badly – after seven years of nonstop railing against the health care law.
Democrats said Americans can “breathe a sigh of relief.” Trump said Obama’s law was imploding “and soon will explode.”
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, said, “This is a victory for the American people. This bill would have devastated hard-working Americans and their families. ‘Trumpcare’ was an absolute betrayal of everything we stand for as Americans and was a cynical legislative attempt to solve a political problem. Republican leadership and the Trump administration should be ashamed to have even tried to sell this plan to the American people.
“Now is the time for Republicans to sit down with [Democrats] and work on making sure our health care system covers everyone in the country at an affordable price, and that we maintain our standing as the leader in the world in health care technology and advances,” Ryan said.
U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson of Marietta, R-6th, said, “I am deeply disappointed that the House was unable to move forward with [Friday’s] vote on this important legislation that would have repealed and replaced ‘Obamacare.’ I voted for this legislation in two committees, and would have supported the bill had it come up for a vote [Friday]. I believe the House missed an historic opportunity to reverse the pain that ‘Obamacare’ has inflicted on the American people, and prevent the pain that millions of Americans are likely to feel as that onerous law continues to unravel.”
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, said: “It’s no secret why this bill didn’t have the votes to pass the House today – it’s a bad deal for the people we serve. Blocking this plan is a victory for the mother who wrote me about the services her son gets for autism, the people I’ve met who are treating their opioid addictions, the seniors who rely on Medicaid to stay in their nursing homes, and thousands more Ohioans who depend on coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
“Instead of wasting any more time threatening to take health insurance away from working families, Congress needs to move on and work together to lower costs and improve health care for everyone.”
Thwarted by two factions of fellow Republicans, from the center and far right, House Speaker Paul Ryan said President Barack Obama’s health care law, the GOP’s No. 1 target in the new Trump administration, will remain in place “for the foreseeable future.”
It was a stunning defeat for the new president after he had demanded House Republicans delay no longer and vote on the legislation Friday, pass or fail.
His gamble failed. Instead Trump, who campaigned as a master deal-maker and claimed that he alone could fix the nation’s health care system, saw his ultimatum rejected by Republican lawmakers who made clear they answer to their own voters, not to the president.
He had “never said repeal and replace it in 64 days,” a dejected but still combative Trump said at the White House, though he had repeatedly shouted during the presidential campaign that it was going down “immediately.”
The bill was withdrawn just minutes before the House vote was to occur, and lawmaker said there were no plans to revisit the issue. Republicans will try to move ahead on other agenda items, including overhauling the tax code, though the failure on the health bill can only make whatever comes next immeasurably harder.
Trump pinned the blame on Democrats.
“With no Democrat support we couldn’t quite get there,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “We learned about loyalty, we learned a lot about the vote-getting process.”
The Obama law was approved in 2010 with no Republican votes.
Despite reports of backbiting from administration officials toward Ryan, Trump said: “I like Speaker Ryan. ... I think Paul really worked hard.”
For his part, Ryan told reporters: “We came really close today but we came up short. ... This is a disappointing day for us.” He said the president has “really been fantastic.”
But when asked how Republicans could face voters after their failure to make good on years of promises, Ryan quietly said: “It’s a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you.”
Last fall, Republicans used the issue to gain and keep control of the White House, Senate and House. During the previous years, they had cast dozens of votes to repeal Obama’s law in full or in part, but when they finally got the chance to pass a repeal version that actually had a chance to become law, they couldn’t deliver.
Democrats could hardly contain their satisfaction.
“Today is a great day for our country, what happened on the floor is a victory for the American people,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who as speaker herself helped Obama pass the Affordable Care Act in the first place. “Let’s just for a moment breathe a sigh of relief for the American people.”
The outcome leaves both Ryan and Trump weakened politically.
For the president, this piles a big early congressional defeat onto the continuing inquiries into his presidential campaign’s Russia connections and his unfounded wiretapping allegations against Obama.
Ryan was not able to corral the House Freedom Caucus, the restive band of conservatives that ousted the previous speaker. Those Republicans wanted the bill to go much further, while some GOP moderates felt it went too far.
Instead of picking up support as Friday wore on, the bill went the other direction, with several key lawmakers coming out in opposition. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, chairman of a major committee, Appropriations, said the bill would raise costs unacceptably on his constituents.
The defections raised the possibility that the bill would not only lose on the floor, but lose big.
The GOP bill would have eliminated the Obama statute’s unpopular fines on people who do not obtain coverage and would also have removed the often-generous subsidies for those who purchase insurance.
Republican tax credits would have been based on age, not income like Obama’s, and the tax boosts Obama imposed on higher-earning people and health care companies would have been repealed.