Why USA Republicans failed to pass (withdrew) Healthcare bill in House of Representatives

Last updated on 28th March 2017

I spent a lot of time over the past few days viewing videos and reading articles related to the issues and politics involved in the GOP Health care bill withdrawal. [Readers may want to read my related post, USA GOP Health-care bill withdrawn; Coping with astronomical costs of 21st century medical care is major social and political problem, http://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.in/2017/03/usa-gop-health-care-bill-withdrawn.html, dated 24th March 2017]

I decided to write this note as a means of ensuring better learning in my role as a student-observer of USA democracy on vital society matters like Health Care.

At a very top-level view, then candidate Trump & team including Mike Pence, Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus, in the last few weeks & months before the Presidential general election, promised to repeal and replace Obamacare with something else that will deliver great healthcare at lower cost. It was a major plank of Trump's campaign. Trump did not give details of how he would do so, and the USA voters decided to "believe" him and voted him as President. Not only that, President Trump got a dream situation with both the House and the Senate having a Republican majority, and most Republicans looking up to him as somebody who delivered this completely unexpected and extraordinary sweeping victory for the Republicans!

But the first major legislative attempt of Trump & team which was to repeal and replace Obamacare, resulted in an embarrassing withdrawal of their proposed bill in the USA House of Representatives as they could not muster the required votes from their own Republican majority in the House!

Given below are some of the videos/articles that stood out for me while I was doing my study-observation of this matter over the past few days.

1) President Trump "We were very close." (C-SPAN), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxstsH3o_mI, 11 min. 13 secs

2) Fact Check: Trump’s Misleading Claims on the Health Bill Failure, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/us/politics/fact-check-trumps-misleading-claims-in-health-bill-failure.html

3) Chuck Schumer: 'Art Of The Deal Is Out The Window' | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncBtmbJv5Tk, 7 min. 24 secs.

4) Pelosi blasts Trump’s ‘rookie error’ on ObamaCare repeal, http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/325460-pelosi-blasts-trumps-rookie-error-on-obamacare-repeal

An extract from it:

“Rookie’s error, Donald Trump,” Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol. “You may be a great negotiator; rookie’s error for bringing this up on a day you clearly are not ready.”

5) Bernie Sanders: We Beat Right-Wing Extremists Today | All In | MSNBC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD96eAGX-S0, 7 min. 41 secs.

6) [Update: The video has now been removed. But I think I should leave this entry as it is.] [Fox News strongly criticizing Trump & team] "GOP Can’t get it done" Shep Smith ATTACKS Republicans AFTER Healthcare FAIL, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c5TckuAFzM, 2 min. 58 secs.

Videos below are (or seem to be) from BEFORE THE BILL WAS WITHDRAWN
==================================================================

7) Trump: Nobody Knew Health Care Could Be So Complicated, Bloomberg Politics, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oQLf65N-AU, 2 min. 13 secs.

8) Watch Bernie Sanders --- at Trump's --- claim 'nobody knew health care' is complicated, (CNN grab), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWKoX9Etx04, 1 min. 45 secs.

Here is a transcript of part of the video,

[From around 0:43]
Interviewer, Mr. Andersen Cooper: I am wondering when you heard the president saying, quote, Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated. I thought nobody knew healthcare would be anything but complicated. But apparently the president said that nobody knew that it would be so complicated. Were you surprised by it?

Senator Bernie Sanders: Some of us who were sitting on the Health Education committee who went to meeting after meeting after meeting, who heard from dozens of people. spent - stayed up night after night trying to figure out this thing. Ya, we got a clue. When you provide healthcare to a nation of 320 million people - Ya, it is very, very complicated. And maybe now, maybe the President (and) some of the Republicans understand you can't (?) go beyond the rhetoric - We are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We are going to repeal Obamacare and everything will be wonderful - Little bit more complicated than that. We remain today, and let's not forget, the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee healthcare for all people. We pay the highest prices by far for prescription drugs. Let's address those issues. Let's get beyond rhetoric."

9) Rand Paul SLAMS TRUMPCARE: "IT DOESN'T WORK!", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFpAWmQOQTw, 4 min. 37 secs.

[From around 0:30 in the video:]
Senator Rand Paul: Our plan is different. The House plan is Obamacare lite - keeps subsidies, keeps taxes, actually keeps an individual mandate and bails out the insurance companies. My plan would legalize freedom and competition. We will get rid of all the mandates so, inexpensive insurance can be sold. We would allow Health Savings Accounts to expand. Every Republican agrees with that. We do something that nobody else is talking about in any of these bills. We let individuals join a group or join an association to get cheaper price and guaranteed issue through the marketplace not through a mandate. One of the things that people are not talking enough about is: every insurance executive told us, if you keep guaranteed issue without the individual mandate they will continue to hemorrhage hundreds of millions of dollars. That's why the House leadership plan has an insurance company bailout built into it because it doesn't work. You can't have guaranteed issue and no individual mandate. That's why Obamacare put it in there. So what you have to have is a plan like ours that gets more people into group insurance and allows them to get guaranteed issue by getting group insurance and fleeing the individual marketplace.

TV Host: So when (you have a) Medicaid issue. Obviously, a number of Republicans say - this came out yesterday - so they couldn't support the current bill because its not generous enough when it comes to Medicaid. What does your bill do in that area?

Rand Paul: We don't address the Medicaid expansion or contraction in the Replacement bill. We think that should be addressed in the Repeal bill. And that's the real point that I told the President when I talked to him on the phone and we said in our press conference yesterday is that Republicans are in agreement on Repeal, (are) not in agreement on Replacement. We are widely apart on Replacement. I think there is unanimity on Repeal. That's why we think we should do a clean Repeal. So Congressman Jim (Jordan) and I introduced yesterday - clean repeal and let's vote on replacement, same day but separately. I think that's the only way this gets through.

Another TV Host: Senator, I know you got principled objections to this piece of legislation but so do some of your senate colleagues like Rob Portman of Ohio who thinks it cuts Medicaid too much. So how do you expect the White House to try to solve that Rubics cube of trying to win over your support while you have already got colleagues who think the bill goes too far.

Rand Paul: It is a conundrum. That's why we should vote on the one thing that we all agreed on. About a year ago we voted on clean repeal. We don't agree on replacement. But we can have a separate vote on Medicaid expansion. And I am guessing Democrats and big government Republicans would probably come together and find that they (will) expand Medicaid. Many conservatives aren't going to vote for that mainly because it doesn't work. We are dishonest in the accounting. We can't pay for the current Medicare. It is 35 trillion dollars in the hole. The current Medicaid is unfunded and then we are going to add new entitlement programs to that! If you really want to have Medicaid for everyone - (in) all these states - you should be honest with the people and you should double or triple the state income tax and double or triple the sales tax. Now I am not for that. But that's what it would take if you were honest. Instead we say, Oh Federal government's going to pay for it! Federal government has no money. We borrow a million dollars a minute. So its just dishonest accounting.

10) Ted Cruz DESTROYS TRUMPCARE: "IT DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM!", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn4j31L16lg, 5 min. 15 secs. [Cruz' biggest concern is that premiums would rise in the short term, and says constituents would be ready to tar and feather them (Congressmen and Senators).]

11) Mark Meadows: We Don't Have Enough 'Yes' Votes To Pass Health Care Bill | MSNBC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz3KgfQhieU, 7 min. 50 secs. [Mark Meadows is the leader of the Freedom Caucus. His issue and the issue of some other members of his Freedom Caucus, was lack of confidence that premium would go down significantly in the new plan and also concern about ensuring coverage of pre-existing diseases.]

12) [Ravi: The video for this entry has very harsh criticism with rather inappropriate language at times. So I decided to NOT provide the link details of the video.]

Some of the Trump campaign quotes from the video:

Trump: "I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken care of now." (This is referring to Healthcare)
...
Trump: "We are going to have insurance for everybody."
...
Interviewer in clip: "The uninsured person is going to be taken care of. How?
Trump: They are going to be taken care of.
Interviewer: How?
Trump: I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people and you know what this is probably ..
Interviewer: [You'll make a deal.] Who pays for it?
Trump: The government's gonna pay for (it).
...

Trump: And they can have their doctors, they can have their plans, they can have everything.

[Ravi: I think then candidate Trump really meant it when he said the words above. So from an intent point of view, I fully support his intent as if he could do it in a financially responsible way, it would be wonderful for the American people. However, I think USA financial situation seems to have forced some cutbacks to what now President Trump would like to do in Healthcare.]

13) Man who attended 45 rallies now opposes Trump, CNN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQbGQvwkw7s, 2 min. 56 secs [The gentleman's son died of heroin overdose in 2014. The Republican plan would have cut out or reduced funding for such drug overdose treatment. The gentleman feels that if his son had health insurance coverage he would have been alive now. (Hmm. So Obamacare did not cover his son. Why? Did not get this part properly). The voiceover says that he is unhappy with Trump for supporting the Republican plan which would increase the number of uninsured Americans and it would end the Obamacare requirement that the 31 states with expanded Medicaid cover addiction services.]

[Ravi: My heart goes out to this gentleman for the loss of his son to heroin overdose. I pray to Almighty God to give courage and strength to this gentleman.]

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Later update:

The article below seems to give the low-down on the failure of Trump-Pence-Ryan team's negotiations with the House Freedom Caucus. It is a longish article but I think it throws a lot of light on the matter.

14) How a secret Freedom Caucus pact brought down Obamacare repeal; The behind-the-scenes story of the staredown between a few dozen conservative true believers and a novice president, http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-freedom-caucus-obamacare-repeal-replace-secret-pact-236507, 26th Mar. 2017

Please note that I have a PUBLICLY NEUTRAL informal-student-observer role in these posts that I put up about the USA presidential elections and USA govt. legislation efforts. Of course, as I am an Indian citizen living in India, there is no question of me having voted in these elections.

[I thank the USA political leaders whose quotes I have partially transcribed/shared above and the TV channels associated with the videos above, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing those quotes on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]