Republicans Kill Health Care Vote As GOP Members Defect

Updated at 4 p.m. ET

House Republicans have scrapped a vote on their health care replacement plan after defections from both the right and center that made it clear the bill would not pass.

NPR's Susan Davis reports that GOP leadership aide confirmed that the Friday afternoon vote is now scrapped after House Speaker Paul Ryan made a last-minute trip to the White House to tell President Trump that the votes simply weren't there to pass their Affordable Care Act replacement plan, branded the American Health Care Act. Trump agreed with Ryan's plan to halt the vote.

The near-certain defeat of the bill saves the GOP — for now — from a devastating and embarrassing blow and gives some of their most vulnerable members a reprieve from having to take a politically difficult vote.

Still, the inability to reach consensus on a bill, given its control of the House, Senate and White House, badly hurts its image as a party that can govern.The party has vowed repeatedly over the past eight years that it would repeal and replace Obamacare. The legislative stalemate endangers Trump's and the GOP's agenda and casts a cloud over the legislative path forward after an election waged almost entirely as the antithesis to a progressive agenda enacted by former President Barack Obama, Trump's predecessor.

In an interview with the Washington Post's Robert Costa confirming the decision to pull the health care bill, Trump said he didn't blame Ryan for the bill's failure. However, the already fragile relationship between the two, dating back to Ryan's lukewarm support for Trump during the campaign, could be affected by this setback and imperil other components of Trump's agenda, such as tax reform.

The risks were high for President Trump on the bill. He has hyped a brand of someone able to strike the best deals. Being unable to get this through, after giving an ultimatum to congressional Republicans Thursday, raises questions about just how good a deal-maker he is and underscore his lack of legislative and policy experience upon entering the White House.

Vice President Pence, who canceled a trip out of Washington, had hoped to make one last sale in a meeting with the roughly 40-member, hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus, which had also refused to budge from its ideological objections to the bill.

In an attempt to win the caucus over, an amendment was added to the bill late Wednesday night, cutting essential health benefits, 10 types of medical care that insurance companies are required to cover. The Freedom Caucus wants to see premiums come down and believes cutting benefits is the way to do that.

But that also had an effect on moderates. For example, Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., who represents a swing district in the D.C. suburbs, said she wouldn't back the bill, joining more moderate Republicans who are top 2018 Democratic targets who don't want to take a tough vote that might come back to bite them during the midterms.

Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, another centrist Republican, announced he wouldn't support the bill either, saying in a statement that the GOP's replacement plan was no better than Obamacare.

And House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., also broke ranks with GOP leadership on Friday, announcing that he was a no vote. His reasoning: The current bill adds too many new costs and barriers, along with taking away benefits requirements.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer had maintained at his daily briefing that a vote was still slated for this afternoon. He said Trump had "left everything on the field" to try to woo Republican members, having contacted over 120 members. But his tone and tense were notable.

Spicer wouldn't concede that the bill might fail, but did admit that "at the end of the day, you can't force somebody to do something."

He added, "At the end of the day, this isn't a dictatorship."

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