HEALTH CARE BILL COLLAPSES
Defeat leaves remainder of Republican governing agenda in Congress in question
WASHINGTON — Republican leaders abruptly pulled their overhaul of the nation’s health care system from the House floor on Friday, a dramatic defeat for President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan that leaves a major campaign promise unfulfilled and casts doubt on the Republican Party’s ability to govern.
The decision leaves former President Barack Obama’s chief domestic achievement in place and raises questions about the GOP’s ability to advance other high-stakes priorities, including tax reform and infrastructure spending. Ryan, R-Wis., remains without a signature ac-
complishment as speaker, and the defeat undermines Trump’s image as a skilled dealmaker willing to strike compromises to push his agenda forward.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Trump deflected any responsibility for the setback and instead blamed Democrats. “We couldn’t get one Democratic vote,” he said.
“I don’t blame Paul,” Trump added, referring to Ryan.
Trump said he would not ask Republican leaders to reintroduce the legislation in the coming weeks, and congressional leaders made clear that the bill — known as the American Health Care Act — was dead.
Shortly after the decision, Ryan told reporters his party “came really close today, but we came up short.” He added: “We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.”
“It’s done, DOA,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., who drafted much of the legislation. “This bill is dead.”
Instead, Republican leaders said, they would wait for the Affordable Care Act to encounter fatal problems, believing that Democrats will then want to work with them to make changes.
“As you know, I’ve been saying for years that the best thing is to let Obamacare explode and then go make a deal with the Democrats and have one unified deal,” Trump said. “And they will come to us, we won’t have to come to them.”
It remains far from certain that Republicans, in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, will be able to credibly foist responsibility for the nation’s health care woes onto Democrats. What is certain is that Republicans continue to have difficulty turning their campaign promises into legislative action.
California’s Democratic politicians reacted to the collapse of the GOP’s health care bill with a mix of relief and glee, but some words of caution.
Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris said in a statement: “This sends a clear message to President Trump and Republicans. We will not cut the deficit by cutting care. We will not give tax breaks to insurers while giving higher medical bills to patients. We will not tell seniors, cancer patients and women, ‘You’re on your own.’ ’’
Others mocked Trump’s leadership skills.
“After vowing that his best and final offer would succeed, President Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’ was exposed for what it is: a futile approach to governance,’’ said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland.
But other political leaders in California warned their fellow Democrats not to let Friday’s victory lure them into complacency. “For today we can all breathe a sigh of relief,” tweeted Gov. Jerry Brown. “But for tomorrow, we must gird ourselves for the battles yet to come.”
California’s 14 House Republicans, most of whom had declared their intention to vote in favor of the bill, were largely silent. But many Republican strategists expressed dismay that the House wasn’t able to take the first step in the process of dismantling Obamacare.
“I think this is clearly a self-inflicted wound for Republicans,” said Lanhee Chen, a Hoover Institution fellow who was a key adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, told PBS’ NewsHour. “They had the opportunity here to move ahead on really the only train out of town, if you will, to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with some other reforms.”
For seven years, GOP candidates have pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which expanded Medicaid and created subsidized, state-based exchanges to expand health insurance coverage to 20 million Americans, decrying the taxes and government mandates it enacted.
“Since 2010, every Republican, with the exception of probably a handful, has campaigned from dogcatcher on up that they would do everything they could to repeal and replace Obamacare,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday. “To get in and say you’re going to do something else would not be fair to the American people.”
The drama on Capitol Hill unfolded amid new evidence that public opinion was running against the bill: A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday found that U.S. voters disapproved of the legislation 56 percent to 17 percent, with 26 percent undecided.
The defeat has left the remainder of the Republican governing agenda in Congress in tatters. A proposed corporate tax overhaul favored by Trump and Ryan depended, in part, on the health-care legislation proceeding — creating both political momentum and fiscal space for dramatic action
Before the bill was pulled Friday, Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., called it the “first big vote in the presidency of Donald Trump,” one that would be “a statement, not just about him and the administration but about the Republican Party and where we’re headed.”
“So much about political power is about perception. And if the perception is that you can’t get your first big initiative done, then that hurts the perceptions down the road about your ability to get other big things done,” Byrne said.
Trump said he had no problem waiting for Democrats to seek cooperation with Republicans on health care: “I never said I was going to repeal and replace in the first 61 days.”
In fact, Trump said repeatedly as a candidate and before his inauguration that he would work to repeal the ACA on his first day in office.
Democrats, completely sidelined as Republicans quarreled among themselves, quickly disputed Trump’s accusations.
“The blame falls with President Trump and with the Republicans,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.
“So much for the art of the deal,” he added.
— Donald Trump, on the Affordable Care Act “As you know, I’ve been saying for years that the best thing is to let Obamacare explode and then go make a deal with the Democrats and have one unified deal. And they will come to us, we won’t have to come to them.”