Healthcare

Trumpcare is Dead. Long Live Obamacare.

Written by SK Ashby

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and White House press secretary Sean Spicer have repeatedly claimed they would muster enough votes to pass Paul Ryan's Trumpcare bill, but the bill has now been pulled from consideration.

Trump personally broke the news by calling the Washington Post to tell them about it.

“We just pulled it,” President Trump told the Washington Post in a telephone interview.

The decision came a day after Trump delivered an ultimatum to lawmakers — and represented multiple failures for the new president and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

The decision means the Affordable Care Act remains in place, at least for now, and a major GOP campaign promise goes unfulfilled.

Does this mean the Washington Post is not fake news?

I digress.

It's still possible the House could continue to pursue this issue, but it seems unlikely. It's not as if the fundamental disagreements that prevented the Republican party from passing their own bill in a chamber they control will vanish. It's not as if Democrats will support any future bill that pays for tax cuts for the rich by taking healthcare away from children and the disabled.

Obamacare will remain the law of the land for now and years into the future, and the longer it remains law the more difficult it will be to repeal it.