The White House isn’t giving up hope on the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare, but roughly an hour from when voting was slated to begin, the vital signs are looking awfully weak. Even as Sean Spicer said in his 1 p.m. press briefing that it was too soon to assume the bill could go down, Republican members of Congress continued to announce their opposition to the bill. For now, the bill is still headed for a vote, likely after 3:30 p.m., and House Speaker Paul Ryan has informed the White House that he lacks the 216 or so votes in support to get the legislation passed. If the bill fails, Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.) said on CNN that he expected the next steps for Republicans to include efforts to “move incrementally” in trying to amend the current law -- rather than the sweeping repeal of the Affordable Care Act that Republicans have campaigned on for years. Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are said to be working to keep the momentum alive, but Mr. Spicer, in a press briefing, also suggested this would be the Congress’ sole opportunity to pass an Obamacare repeals -- before the White House moves on to other initiatives on its agenda, like tax reform.

Source: Wall Street Journal March 24, 2017 15:14 UTC