Republicans forced to withdraw Obamacare repeal proposal

Donald Trump suffered a major legislative reversal on Friday as Republicans were forced to pull their repeal of the Affordable Care Act from the House floor.

After weeks of contentious negotiations over the American Health Care Act (AHCA), Republicans had to admit defeat as they could not gain sufficient support from their own side for the plan to overhaul US health insurance.

Speaking afterward in the Oval Office, Trump blamed Democrats for the failure of a bill to repeal the signature achievement of Barack Obama. “If [Democrats] got together with us, and got us a real healthcare bill, I’d be totally OK with that. The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because they own Obamacare. They 100% own it,” he said.

Trump refused to bash the House speaker, Paul Ryan, but declined to answer a question about policy changes he would like to see in health reform. Instead, he said he was ready to move on to tax reform, saying: “We’re probably going to start going very strongly on big tax cuts. Tax reform that will be next.”

He added: “We all learned a lot. We learned a lot about loyalty.”

Earlier on Friday, as it became clear that Republican resistance to the bill was hardening, Ryan went to the White House to tell Trump in person that he did not have the votes to pass the bill.

The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, had insisted the vote would go ahead at 3.30pm ET. “Has the team put everything out there, have we left everything on the field? Absolutely,” he told reporters at his daily briefing. “But at the end of the day this isn’t a dictatorship and we’ve got to expect members to ultimately vote how they will according to what they think.”

At a press conference soon afterward, Ryan admitted: “Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains and, well, we’re feeling those growing pains today. I will not sugarcoat this: this is a disappointing day for us.”

Ryan said he had recommended the bill be pulled when he realised the votes were lacking. But he praised Trump’s role in the negotiations, adding: “The president gave his all in this effort; he’s really been fantastic. Still, we’ve got to do better and we will.”

Asked how Republican members could now go back to their constituents having failed to keep their promise, Ryan replied: “That’s a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you.”