WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans passed roughly 60 bills over the past six years dismembering
President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Other than minor tweaks, they knew the measures would go
nowhere because the Democrat still lived in the White House.
With a bill that counted Friday, they choked. It was an epic, damaging, self-inflicted collapse that
smothered the GOP effort.
"We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future," a flustered Speaker Paul
Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters after abruptly yanking the legislation off the House floor to avert a
certain defeat. "I don’t know how long it’s going to take us to repeal this law."
The measure would have erased much of Obama’s 2010 law, eliminating its unpopular requirement that people
buy coverage, ending its Medicaid expansion and trimming federal assistance to people to help pay
medical bills. It represented the culmination of seven years of unsuccessful GOP attempts to craft a
replacement bill the party could rally behind — a unity that ended up eluding them.
President Donald Trump responded to the failure by repeating his dire predictions for Obama’s law. He
followed up Saturday, adding a more optimistic twist: "ObamaCare will explode and we will all get
together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!" the president
tweeted.
Vice President Mike Pence sounded as though the repeal-and-replace effort would continue unabated,
telling a group at a small business in West Virginia on Saturday that "we will end the Obamacare
nightmare and give the American people the world-class health care that they deserve." He
acknowledged that "Congress just wasn’t ready. … We’re back to the drawing board."
While some parts of the Affordable Care Act have obvious problems, others are working well and have
brought the country’s rate of uninsured people to a record low.
With Trump serving alongside a Congress controlled by the GOP, the bill was the party’s first genuine
opportunity to repeal Obama’s statute. Ryan shelved it amid defections from centrist Republicans who
thought it went too far and conservatives who considered it too weak, plus solid Democratic opposition.

Its rejection was fueled by nonpartisan congressional analysts concluding it would cause 24 million
people to lose coverage in a decade and drive up costs for poorer and older people. There was also
opposition from doctors, hospitals, consumer groups and AARP.
One problem facing the GOP is repercussions from the party’s voters. For nearly a decade, they’ve heard
countless Republican congressional candidates promise to repeal Obama’s statute, a pledge that became a
centerpiece of Trump’s presidential campaign.
"It’s a really good question," Ryan said, asked how Republicans could face constituents after
failing to deliver on years of promises. "I wish I had a better answer for you."
Democrats, loyal defenders of Obama’s law, were literally jumping for joy. House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., removed her shoes and took a victory leap while meeting activists outside the Capitol.

Obama’s statute has spread coverage to 20 million people and required insurers to cover numerous services
and barred them from refusing policies to the very sick.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said that "at some point" lawmakers have to address the costs and
availability of health care and said he was willing to work with the administration and both parties to
do that. He issued the statement, he said, after a Friday night conversation with Trump.
But top congressional Republicans mostly conceded the measure’s demise meant it was time to move onto
other issues.
Among them was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has spoken repeatedly about how
unraveling Obama’s law was a top priority for his chamber. In a statement, he expressed only gloom about
the effort’s future.
"Obamacare is failing the American people and I deeply appreciate the efforts of the speaker and the
president to keep our promise to repeal and replace it, "McConnell said. "I share their
disappointment that this effort came up short."
Two chief House authors expressed no taste for diving back into the issue.
"D-O-N-E done. This bill is dead," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who heads the House Energy
and Commerce Committee.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Republicans "are moving full
speed ahead with President Trump on the first pro-growth tax reform in a generation."
But there was no easy path ahead. Retooling America’s health care system — it comprises one-sixth of the
nation’s economy — is a multi-tiered puzzle.
On the economic side, it involves refashioning how providers, patients and federal programs should
interact. And a political balance must be struck between conservatives eager to erase Obama’s law and
push the system toward a free-market approach, and GOP moderates wary that would strip coverage from
some voters and drive up out-of-pocket costs for others.
Earlier this month, Ryan thought he would find that balance.
"We’ll have 218 (votes) when this thing comes to the floor, I can guarantee you that," he said,
referring to the House majority usually needed to pass legislation.
Ironically, the outcome hewed more closely to a prediction by Ryan’s predecessor, former Speaker John
Boehner, R-Ohio. Boehner was forced out of office in 2015 largely by the hard-right House Freedom
Caucus, the same group whose opposition was largely responsible for the crumpling of the GOP bill on
Friday.
Boehner said last month that while Republicans would fix some problems of Obama’s law, a repeal and
replacement is "not going to happen."
He added, "Republicans never ever agree on health care."