Fallout Continues Over the GOP Obamacare Repeal Fail
The fallout over the failure of the House GOP to pass the Obamacare replacement bill last week continued Sunday. In an early morning tweet, President Trump accused the House Freedom Caucus and other conservative groups of saving Planned Parenthood and Obamacare by refusing to back the GOP effort.
Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 26, 2017
And to think, on Friday, Trump called the Freedom Caucus “friends.”
Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint responded to the President’s tweet, saying the American Health Care Act would not have repealed Obamacare and lowered premiums. He did agree with Trump that a “better bill” is within reach and offered up Heritage’s own plan.
.@POTUS Unfortunately experts agreed AHCA wouldn’t truly repeal Obamacare & lower premiums, agree with you we can now get better bill
— Jim DeMint (@JimDeMint) March 26, 2017
.@POTUS Plans ready that truly repeal Obamacare, lower costs & defund PP. Look forward to working together to do so https://t.co/3AshDgg3VH
— Jim DeMint (@JimDeMint) March 26, 2017
President Says “Do Not Worry!”
The AHCA was pulled from the House floor Friday in what the media is touting as a humiliating political defeat for the president. Trump isn’t acting too humiliated. In a Saturday tweet he assured the American people, “Do not worry!” He promised “we will all get together and piece together a great health plan for THE PEOPLE.” And he again declared Obamacare is collapsing of its own accord.
ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus agreed, telling Fox News Sunday “Obamacare is imploding, it’s exploding.” He also suggested that “at the end of the day it’s time for the (Republican) party to start governing.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan admitted as much Friday after pulling the bill. He blamed the failure to get the bill passed on the “growing pains of government.” “We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do,” Ryan said. “You just had to be against it. Now, in three months’ time, we tried to go to a governing party where we actually had to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things.”
Vice President Mike Pence said Saturday it’s “back to the drawing board.” However, Priebus warns holdout Republicans no perfect bill exists. “We can’t be chasing the perfect all the time,” he said, “Sometimes you have to take the good and take the win.”
Meanwhile, the progressive dream of a single-payer health care system is alive and well. Sen. Bernie Sanders told a town hall Saturday he plans on introducing a “Medicare for all” bill in the next couple weeks.
