Vote Cancelled, Health Care Bill Pulled – Here’s What’s Next

Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the American Health Care Act from consideration on the House floor Friday afternoon when he realized that they didn’t have the votes to get it passed.

“This is a disappointing day for us,” speaker Ryan said in a press conference. “This is a setback, no two ways about it. But it is not the end of the story.”

The speaker pulled the bill after talking with President Trump recognizing that they didn’t have the votes.

“We just didn’t quite get consensus today,” Ryan said and added that they “will proceed with tax reform.”

Ryan’s statement echoes what the president and his spokesman had said earlier. If the bill didn’t pass today, that was it – they would move on to work on tax reform.

Today’s pitfall isn’t the end of Obamacare repeal. Congress could continue working to create a consensus bill that could be considered after tax reform is passed, but that’s unlikely in the near future.

Obamacare will likely continue to collapse and once it does, many envision consensus coming easier with democrats crossing the aisle to help fix the mess they made.

More likely, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi will blame the collapse of the health care system on republicans’ unwillingness to fix Obamacare and the GOP will fail again to have the messaging needed to place the blame where it belongs.