Republicans pull plug on new health plan
U.S. President Donald Trump says his health care reform fell short because it lacked support from Democrats.
Trump made his first comments about the failure of a signature legislative item Friday in the Oval Office a short time after a House vote on the bill was cancelled.
Trump told reporters “we were very close” and tried to blame Democrats, though Republicans control both the House and the Senate.
He also predicted the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as it’s known, would soon implode, forcing Democrats to join the Republicans at the negotiating table.
Trump said he would be willing to reopen negotiations for a health care bill with Democrats if the Affordable Care Act fails. Trump told reporters Friday that he would be “open to it” if Democrats wanted to work on a bipartisan measure.
He predicted the current law would soon collapse.
The president says he has a great relationship with the Republican Party and isn’t going to speak badly about GOP lawmakers. Still, he said he was a little surprised by the bill’s rejection from the conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus.
Trump also said he “never said repeal and replace it within 64 days,” though he repeatedly promised during the campaign to do it on Day 1 of his term.
Meanwhile Speaker Paul Ryan says the collapse of the House Republican health care bill means former President Barack Obama’s health care law will be around for the foreseeable future.
The Wisconsin Republican addressed reporters minutes after GOP leaders abruptly shelved the legislation, averted likely defeat for the bill.
But it still dealt a damaging setback to Trump, Ryan and an entire party that has long said it wants to annul Obama’s statute.
Ryan says pulling the bill was “a setback, no two ways about it.”
The speaker is chiding Republicans who refused to back the legislation for being too inflexible. He says lawmakers must be “willing to give a little to get something done.”
Many conservative and moderate Republicans opposed the legislation. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is mocking House Republicans for their failure to repeal and replace Obama’s health law.
“Quite frankly I thought they might have accomplished something in the first few months,” Pelosi said of President Donald Trump and the majority Republicans in Congress. They have absolutely no record of accomplishment.”
At the White House, as he blamed Democrats for the defeat of the bill, Trump noted that no Democrat supported the bill.
“We’ll take credit for that,” Pelosi said.