Washington : Donald Trump has suffered a humiliating legislative defeat as Republicans were forced to pull their repeal of the Obamacare bill, prompting the US President to warn Americans that "bad things are going to happen". House Speaker Paul Ryan failed to garner enough votes in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives for the passage of the new healthcare bill to replace the Obamacare due to opposition from some of its own party lawmakers, in particular the one that have grouped themselves under the banner of Freedom Caucus. The US House of Representatives ?-- similar to the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament ?-- has 435 members. The Republican party enjoys a simple majority in the House with 235 members.
However, Ryan, who had been leading the effort on behalf of Trump, could not muster the majority 215 votes. As a result, in an effort to avoid the humiliation of a defeat, Ryan announced that he was withdrawing the move to have a vote on Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Unlike India, US Congress does not have an anti-defection bill, as a result of which US lawmakers are free to exercise their right to vote on a bill as per their wish and not according to dictate of the party leadership. Blaming the opposition democrats for the failure, Trump warned that now Obamacare is going to stay, people would see a sudden rise in their insurance premium.
"Its going to happen (explode). Theres not much you can do about it. Bad things are going to happen. Theres not much you can do to help it. Ive been saying that for a year and a half. Its not sustainable. Theres no way out," Trump told reporters at the White House after the bill was withdrawn. As we got closer and closer everyone was talking about how wonderful (Obamacare) was. Now it will go back to real life, people will see how bad it is and its getting much worse. When President (Barack) Obama left, 2017 was going to be a very bad year for Obamacare," Trump said. Going to see explosive premium increases and the deductibles are so high that no one is going to be able to use it," he said. PTI
