President Donald Trump blamed Democrats on Friday for the failure of the GOP health care bill that would have replaced the Affordable Care Act.
House Republicans withdrew the bill on Friday after it became clear they lacked the votes for it to pass, a development that served a major setback to their consistent promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The GOP has majorities in both the House and Senate.
“Perhaps the best thing that could happen is exactly what happened today because we’ll end up with a truly great health care bill in the future after this mess known as Obamacare explodes,” Trump said Friday afternoon, speaking from the Oval Office.
He predicted that Democrats would look to work with Republicans on health care reform in the future, even as Democratic lawmakers celebrated the failure of the Republican plan.
“Whenever they’re ready, we’re ready,” Trump said, repeatedly arguing that “with no Democrat support, we couldn’t quite get there.”
The bill also faced opposition from many Republicans and health organizations.
In an earlier press conference on Friday, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan explained that the GOP-controlled House was unable to reach consensus on the controversial bill. “This is a setback — no two ways about it — but it is not the end of this story,” Ryan said.
Trump said he still had confidence in Ryan and refrained from casting blame on Republicans who had withheld their support.
“A lot of people don’t realize don’t how good our bill was,” Trump said, arguing that when taken as a three-phase plan, “it became a great bill.”
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