New York // Donald Trump has set his sights on tax reforms as he tries to draw a line under a humiliating climbdown on Friday when he was forced to withdraw a bill to replace Obamacare.
Opponents scoffed at the US president’s self-proclaimed deal making ability after he and his team in Congress failed to muster sufficient votes to pass their American Health Care Act despite a Republican majority in both houses of Congress.
Republicans said they had no plans to rewrite the bill. Instead they will allow Obamacare to “explode” or collapse under its own weight as they move on to other priorities.
“We’ll be going right now for tax reform, which we could have done earlier, but this really would have worked out better if we could have had some Democrat support,” said Mr Trump to reporters in the Oval Office.
“Remember this: We had no Democrat support. So now we’re going to go for tax reform, which I’ve always liked.”
Mr Trump had made repealing and replacing Barack Obama’s signature health care policy a key platform of his election campaign.
However, it soon became clear that he and the Republican leadership in Congress would struggle to construct a bill that would please both the conservatives of the Tea Party wing as well as moderates who knew many of their voters had been able to purchase health insurance for the first time under Obamacare.
The plan would have left 52 million people without health insurance, an increase of 24 million, according to a forecast by the Congressional Budget Office.
Conservatives felt the bill did not go far enough in easing restrictions on insurance companies and patients while moderates worried they would lose votes among constituents who could afford coverage for the first time under Obamacare.
Every time Paul Ryan, Republican leader in the House of Representatives, relaxed a regulation to placate the hardline Freedom Caucus and win a vote in the House, he risked losing a vote in the Senate, where members tend to be more mainstream.
Mr Trump himself ordered a vote on Friday before backing down when it became clear there was no prospect of the bill being passed.
He announced the decision in typically unusual style, by telephoning one journalist at The New York Times and one at The Washington Post.
He said there would be no further effort to reform health care until Democrats were on board.
“It’s imploding, and soon will explode, and it’s not going to be pretty,” he said.
“So the Democrats don’t want to see that, so they’re going to reach out when they’re ready. And whenever they’re ready, we’re ready.”
While some Republicans expressed anger at Mr Ryan and Mr Trump for an embarrassing climbdown, others said withdrawing a bill that could have been tied up in Congress for months was a sensible step.
John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said Mr Obama would receive much of the blame if Obamacare simply withered and died, while the Republicans could move on to other things.
“The House leadership will get the blame for the bill because they are the ones who scheduled it, put it together, produced it, but I’m not sure there’s going to be that much blame,” he said. “This probably wasn’t going to get through the senate and was going to be an anvil around the head of many members.”
The bill’s failure brings an end to yet another terrible week for Mr Trump. On Monday the FBI confirmed it was investigating Russian efforts to influence the election in his favour and ties between his campaign and Moscow.
By Friday he had failed his biggest political test so far, at a time when he should still be enjoying an electoral honeymoon and able to unite his party.
Perhaps most damaging is the fact that Mr Trump — elected in part to bring his business skills to the White House — failed to negotiate a deal between the factions of his own party.
Although the bill did not carry Mr Trump’s name, his spokesman made clear that the president was heavily invested in its success.
Sean Spicer said 120 Congressmen and women had met Mr Trump to discuss the bill.
“The president has been working the phones and having in-person meetings since the American Health Care Act was introduced,” he said just before the vote was expected. “He’s left everything on the field when it comes to this bill.”
Democrats were delighted at the outcome.
Chuck Schumer, who leads the party in the senate, said he had never seen such an incompetent administration.
“So much for the art of the deal,” he said, making reference to Mr Trump’s best known book.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
