Trump faces defeat on health-care bill

ERICA WERNER and ALAN FRAM

WASHINGTON — In a humiliating failure, U.S. President Donald Trump and GOP leaders pulled their bill to repeal “Obamacare” off the House floor Friday when it became clear it would fail badly.

Democrats said Americans can “breathe a sigh of relief.” Trump said the current law was imploding “and soon will explode.”

Thwarted by two factions of fellow Republicans, from the centre and far right, House Speaker Paul Ryan said former 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 Trump 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 dealmaker 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 “never said repeal and replace it in 64 days,” a dejected but still combative Trump said at the White House, though he repeatedly shouted during the presidential campaign that it was going down on Day One of his term.

The bill was withdrawn just minutes before the House vote was to occur, and lawmakers said there were no plans to revisit the issue.

“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.

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.”

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.”