DEAL BREAKER
Trump has no one to blame but himself for health care bill failure
WASHINGTON — Dissembling even more so than usual, President Donald “Art of the Deal” Trump is characteristically blaming everyone but himself after House Speaker Paul Ryan, R- Wis., pulled the Obamacare repeal bill because it did not have the votes to pass.
“We learned a lot about the vote- getting process. We learned a lot about some very arcane rules in obviously both the Senate and in the House,” Trump told reporters after the Friday debacle.
Mr. President, this is not about “we.” This is about you and your inability in this initial round to deliver on a key “repeal and replace” campaign promise.
You just heard that the House and Senate have arcane rules? Presidents come and go. Arcane congressional rules stay. The job of a president is to — because the crazy rules are rarely changed — make the deal anyway.
When it comes to getting things done in Congress, the only number that matters is how many votes it takes to pass legislation in the House and Senate.
In the House, that number on Friday was 216. That’s a fact.
The number of your electoral votes does not matter.
The crowd size count at your inauguration is not important.
“We had no Democrat support. We had no votes from the Democrats. They weren’t going to give us a single vote, so it’s a very difficult thing to do,” Trump whined to the press pool.
My big point No. 1: There was no reality- based reason to think even for a second that any House Democrat would vote for a partisan measure designed to dismantle former President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 health insurance law.
My big point No. 2: Trump didn’t even try to win Democratic backing. Not that he could, with a poorly conceived plan that reduced the number of people covered and also did not guarantee insurance would be cheaper, deductibles lower or that you would keep your doctor. The GOP plan also stripped away medical services people have come to expect in their basic health insurance package.
GOP House members could not forge a compromise that would yield 216 votes.
There are 237 Republicans in the House. They — not Democrats — needed to supply the 216 votes.
Before Trump talked to the press pool — even before Ryan held his own press conference to ruminate on his failure, Trump made calls to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times and Robert Costa of the Washington Post to complain about the Democrats.
Trump, who has declared “dishonest” journalists were the “enemy of the American people,” called two reporters from the influential outlets to push his Democratic blame game.
Republicans have spent the last seven years refusing to work with Democrats to fix the flaws Obama and congressional Democrats acknowledged were in Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Because the Obamacare tangle of rules and regulations was imperfect, Obama and House and Senate Democrats invited Republicans over the years to work in a bipartisan fashion to make it better.
Instead, Republicans voted many times to repeal Obamacare when Obama was president. They knew that Obama would veto any measure so Republicans didn’t have to worry about any policy, cost or coverage issues involved in a replacement plan.
In other words, when repealing Obamacare was merely a theoretical or political statement, Republicans were all yes votes.
Now Republicans control the House, Senate and White House.
“Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains. And, well, we’re feeling those growing pains today,” Ryan said.
“I will not sugarcoat this, this is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard,” Ryan mused.
Disagreements between the GOP members — especially with the “Freedom Caucus” members who have no fundamental interest in a federal health insurance coverage role — was the problem.
Ryan yanked the measure rather than face further damage to the GOP with a roll call exposing rifts in the Republican House ranks.
Trump did not share in Ryan’s disappointment.
Said a gleeful Trump to the pool, “we’ll end up with a truly great health care bill in the future after this mess known as Obamacare explodes.”
If Trump wasn’t so oblivious to reality he would recognize that he now owns Obamacare. The buck landed Friday on his desk.
“WE HAD NO VOTES FROM THE DEMOCRATS. THEY WEREN’T GOING TO GIVE US A SINGLE VOTE, SO IT’S A VERY DIFFICULT THING TO DO.’’ PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP on why the Republican health care bill failed