Congressman Disappointed in Healthcare Repeal Failure

Trump on Thursday gave reticent House members an ultimatum: pass this bill or Obamacare stays.

“Obamacare is failing the American people and I deeply appreciate the efforts of the speaker and the president to keep our promise to repeal and replace it, “McConnell said“. Which we could’ve done earlier but this really would’ve worked out better if we could’ve had Democrat support. For example, Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., who represents a swing district in the D.C. suburbs, said she wouldn’t back the bill, joining more moderate Republicans who are top 2018 Democratic targets and don’t want to take a tough vote that might come back to bite them during the midterms.

“I’ve been saying for the previous year and a half that the best thing we could do, politically speaking, is let Obamacare explode”.

Mr Ryan said at a press conference it was a setback, but it was a dissapointing day for the Republicans. It would close United States borders to nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, and all refugees for at least 120 days. “I came here to solve problems and I believe I’ve been part of making this bill much better”.

A new estimate by the Congressional Budget Office released on Thursday evening said recent changes to the bill would make it costlier than previously thought. “We came very close but we did not get consensus”.

And then Donald Trump put the lid on the coffin by repeatedly saying nothing would happen on health care until Democrats joined in after Obamacare “explodes”.

“Today’s a great day for our country”. Caucus Republicans are less afraid of him than they are of Trump.

I’d like to see a post mortem on just how Trump applied his famed negotiating skills to the healthcare vote.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said that in a phone call with her on Friday Mr Trump blamed Democrats for the postponement, and said he anticipated that when Obamacare “explodes” the opposition party would be ready to do a deal.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is expected to speak soon about the bill.

House Republican leaders made a decision to pull their Obamacare replacement bill at the last minute at the request of President Donald Trump – capping a rocky series of weeks since the controversial measure was introduced and an order from the president for legislators to put their cards on the table today.

The battle was an eye-opening experience for Trump, a billionaire real estate tycoon who entered the White House with no experience of politics or government, including the delicate navigations of Congress.

The CBO projected that 70% of the 20 million people covered by the passage of Obamacare would be stiffed on their health care within the next year. Despite last minute concessions to the Freedom Caucus and a Friday afternoon trip from Ryan to the White House, no agreement was reached.

“It’s pretty exciting for us”, the California Democrat said, beaming. His reasoning: The current bill adds too many new costs and barriers, along with taking away benefits requirements.

Replacing Obama’s signature health care plan was a key campaign pledge for Trump and Republicans, who view it as overly intrusive and expensive. But in fact, they have several options to salvage the repeal effort after they couldn’t muster 215 votes. Republicans could only afford to lose 22 GOP votes for the bill to succeed, and it appeared they were far short. Now, House Republican leaders are struggling with the same divisions that plagued them under President Barack Obama.

The measure, the American Health Care Act, had traveled a tortured road to Friday, undergoing a hasty amendment process to try pleasing conservatives, particularly the House Freedom Caucus, who resisted the plan nearly from the start.

– Russia -Since US intelligence agencies past year took the unprecedented step of publicly accusing Russia of trying to swing November’s presidential election in Trump’s favor, questions have swirled about whether some in his campaign colluded with Moscow. The vote looked to be a cliffhanger.

Mr Spicer said the president was meeting Mr Ryan to “discuss the way forward” and the president had “left everything on the field” on the bill.