By Andrea Germanos / Common DreamsUpdate:

News outlets are reporting at 3:35 p.m. EST that House Republicans pulled their healthcare bill just before the vote was to take place.

Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California described the bill’s failure as “a victory for the resistance,” while The New York Times writes that it’s “a humiliating defeat for President Trump on the first legislative showdown of his presidency.”

Earlier: As resistance efforts urge constituents to call their representatives to #killthebill, the death of the Republicans’ American Health Care Act (AHCA) appears early Friday afternoon to be near certain.

!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+”://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”); Just before 2:00 pm, White House press secretary Sean Spicer would not discuss the administration’s strategy if Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (Wis.) confirms to President Donald Trump that Republicans do not have the votes to pass the measure.

“I’m not going to comment,” Spicer said. “I think the speaker and the president are going to have a discussion about where those votes are and what some of the members’ needs are and we’ll take it from there.”

Just ahead of that press briefing, Ryan visited the White House, where he reportedly told Trump that it didn’t have enough Republican support to pass.

That’s despite the White House on Thursday having sent out budget director Mick Mulvaney to tell Republicans that if they don’t support the AHCA, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known Obamacare, will remain the “law of the land.”

The New York Times writes that Trump and Ryan

faced the humiliating prospect of a major defeat on legislation promised for seven years, since the landmark health legislation was signed into law. President Trump had demanded a vote regardless, which has been scheduled for Friday afternoon. But House leaders were leaning against such a public loss.

The House had been scheduled to vote Thursday on the measure, but having been “met with a deluge of outrage and calls,” as Common Dreams wrote, it was pushed to Friday. It is set to take place at 3:30pm.

The Huffington Post notes: “The GOP bill has been changed so much that the usual Congressional Budget Office analysis, which would assess the final measure’s impact, does not yet exist.” The most recent scoring from the CBO, however, shows it would still threaten coverage for 24 million people by 2026, and a new Quinnipiac University released Thursday found that only 17 percent of voters currently approve of the GOP bill.

And, as Common Dreams noted, “In a last-minute gift to the ultraconservative House Freedom caucus, Ryan and Trump stripped (pdf) the AHCA of the ‘essential health benefits’ central to Obamacare, which mandates that insurance plans include coverage for basic care, such as maternity and wellness visits.”

The Indivisible Guide and others say those opposed to the bill should pick up their phones to press their members of Congress to vote ‘no.’

“What’s happening today is a lose-lose situation for the Republicans,” said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. “It’s a lose-lose for the American people, that’s for sure. But the people who vote for this will have this vote tattooed to their foreheads as they go forward.”

Andrea Germanos is a staff writer at Common Dreams.

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In this Article:
#aca#affordable care act#ahca#american health care act#barack obama#barbara lee#congressional budget office#democrats#donald trump#gop#house of representatives#kamala harris#mick mulvaney#nancy pelosi#obamacare#paul ryan#republicans#sean spicer#trumpcare