Health-care battle not over, says White House

WASHINGTON: Regrouping after a rocky few weeks, the White House declared yesterday that President Donald Trump didn’t consider the health care battle to be over, suggesting he may turn to Democrats to help him overhaul the system after his own party rejected his proposal.

The sudden interest in bipartisanship is a shift for a president who has spent months mocking Democratic leaders as inept.

And Democrats indicated they had no interest if his intent was still to dismantle “Obamacare.”

“I don’t think we’ve seen the end of health care,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said yesterday, pointing to “a series of fits and starts” that marked the process that led to passage of President Barack Obama’s health care law, too, in 2010.

Trump’s failure to win the votes to pass his bill, which was withdrawn last Friday, has prompted the new president to rethink how he intends to promote his agenda in Congress.

White House officials are signaling a renewed focus on job creation, taxes and the administration’s push to win confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a bright spot for the president.

House Speaker Paul Ryan huddled at the White House with Vice President Mike Pence, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus to discuss the legislative agenda, a Ryan spokesman said. – ANA-AP