|
 House of Representatives leaders yanked the bill after a rebellion
by Republican moderates and the party's most conservative lawmakers
left them short of votes, ensuring that Trump's first major
legislative initiative since taking office on Jan. 20 ended in
failure. Democrats were unified against it.
House Republicans had planned a vote on the measure after Trump late
on Thursday cut off negotiations with Republicans who had balked at
the plan and issued an ultimatum to vote on Friday, win or lose. But
desperate lobbying by the White House and Republican House Speaker
Paul Ryan was unable to round up the 216 votes needed for passage.
"We learned a lot about loyalty. We learned a lot about the
vote-getting process," Trump told reporters at the White House,
although he sought to shift the blame to the Democrats even though
his party controls the White House, the House and the Senate.
With Friday's legislative collapse, Democratic former President
Barack Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, the 2010
Affordable Care Act - known as Obamacare - remains in place despite
seven years of Republican promises to dismantle it.
The healthcare failure called into question not only Trump's ability
to get other key parts of his agenda, including tax cuts and a boost
in infrastructure spending, through Congress, but the Republican
Party's capacity to govern effectively.
Neither Trump nor Ryan indicated any plans to try to tackle
healthcare legislation again anytime soon. Trump said he would turn
his attention to getting "big tax cuts" through Congress, another
tricky proposition.
Republican supporters said the legislation would achieve their goal
of rolling back the government's "nanny state" role in healthcare.
The White House made undoing Obamacare its top priority when Trump
took office two months ago.
But the White House and House leaders were unable to come up with a
plan that satisfied the clashing interests of moderates and
conservatives, despite Trump's vaunted image as a deal maker.
Amid a chaotic scramble for votes, Ryan, who championed the bill,
met with Trump at the White House. Ryan said he recommended that it
be withdrawn from the House floor because he did not have the votes
to pass it, and Trump agreed.
"We were just probably anywhere from 10 to 15 votes short," Trump
said. "With no Democrat support we couldn't quite get there."
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the bill failed "because
of two traits that have plagued the Trump presidency since he took
office: incompetence and broken promises."
Democrats said the bill would take away medical insurance from
millions of Americans and leave the more-than-$3 trillion U.S.
healthcare system in disarray.
And some moderate Republicans opposed the bill because of worries
that millions of America would be hurt.
"There were things in this bill that I didn't particularly like,"
Trump added, without specifying what those were, but expressed
confidence in Ryan's leadership.
"Perhaps the best thing that could happen is exactly what happened
today, because we'll end up with a truly great healthcare bill in
the future after this mess known as Obamacare explodes," said Trump,
who had posted multiple tweets throughout March proclaiming that "Obamacare
is imploding" and repeatedly saying that Republicans were coming
together to pass the bill.
Friday's events cast doubt on whether Ryan can get major legislation
approved by fractious Republican lawmakers.
"I will not sugarcoat this. This is a disappointing day for us.
Doing big things is hard," Ryan said at a news conference, adding
that his fellow Republicans are experiencing what he called "growing
pains" transitioning from an opposition party to a governing party.
"Obamacare's the law of the land," Ryan added. "We're going to be
living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future."
"A LITTLE SURPRISED"
Members of the Freedom Caucus, the House's most conservative
members, were instrumental in the bill's failure, opposing it among
other reasons because they considered parts too similar to
Obamacare.
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Trump said he was disappointed and "a little surprised" with the
Freedom Caucus opposition.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said under the
Republican legislation 14 million people would lose medical coverage
by next year and more than 24 million would be uninsured in 2026.
News that the bill had been pulled before a final vote was greeted
initially with a small sigh of relief by U.S. equity investors, who
earlier in the week had been fretful that an outright defeat would
damage Trump's other priorities, such as tax cuts and infrastructure
spending. Benchmark U.S. stock market indexes ended the session
mixed after rallying back from session lows following the news. The
S&P 500 Index ended fractionally lower, the blue chip Dow Jones
Industrial Average slipped about 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq
Composite Index rose about 0.2 percent.
Shares of hospital operators finished sharply higher, with the S&P
healthcare facilities index up 2.7 percent, while the S&P 500
healthcare sector edged down 0.03 percent. The dollar strengthened
modestly on the news, and U.S. Treasury bond yields edged up from
session lows.
Trump said he would be "totally open" to working with Democrats on
healthcare "when they all become civilized." House Democratic leader
Nancy Pelosi said working to lower prescription drug prices was one
area of possible cooperation with Republicans.
Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher said before the bill was
pulled that voting it down would be "neutering Trump" while
empowering his opponents.
"You don't cut the balls off a bull and then expect that he can go
out and get the job done," Rohrabacher told Reuters. "This will
emasculate Trump and we can't do that. ... If we bring this down
now, Trump will have lost all of his leverage to pass whatever bill
it is, whether it's the tax bill or whatever reforms that he wants."
Representative Joe Barton of Texas, when asked why his fellow
Republicans were so united over the past seven years to dump
Obamacare only to fall apart when they actually do something about
it, said, "Sometimes you're playing fantasy football and sometimes
you’re in the real game."
Obamacare boosted the number of Americans with health insurance
through mandates on individuals and employers, and income-based
subsidies. About 20 million Americans gained insurance coverage
through the law.
The House plan would have rescinded a range of taxes created by
Obamacare, ended a penalty on people who refuse to obtain health
insurance, and ended Obamacare's income-based subsidies to help
people buy insurance while creating less-generous age-based tax
credits
It also would have ended Obamacare's expansion of the Medicaid
state-federal insurance program for the poor, cut future federal
Medicaid funding and let states impose work requirements on some
Medicaid recipients.
House leaders agreed to a series of last-minute changes to try to
win over disgruntled conservatives, including ending the Obamacare
requirement that insurers cover certain "essential benefits" such as
maternity care, mental health services and prescription drug
coverage.
Click on the links below for related graphics:
Graphic on Obamacare and Republican healthcare bill (http://tmsnrt.rs/2n0ZMKf)
Graphic on poll on Americans' views of the Republican healthcare
bill (http://tmsnrt.rs/2n7f3e4)
(Additional reporting by Dustin Volz, David Morgan, David Lawder,
Susan Cornwell, Susan Heavey, Richard Cowan, Steve Holland, Roberta
Rampton, Patricia Zengerle and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Will Dunham;
Editing by Bill Rigby and Leslie Adler)
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