The GOP has pulled the Health Care bill that would have repealed and replaced the Affordable Care Act.
“You’ve all heard me say this before — moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains and, well, we’re feeling those growing pains today,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said following the announcement.
“This is a disappointing day for us,” he added. “Doing big things is hard. All of us, all of us, myself included, will need time to reflect on how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better. … This is a setback, no two ways about it — but it is not the end of the story because I know that every man and woman in this conference is now motivated more than ever to step up on their game, to deliver on our promises.”
President Trump spoke from the Oval Office after Ryan’s announcement, saying that the health care bill fell short in the lead-up to the House vote because of no support from Democrats. “They weren’t going to give us a single vote,” the president said.
He went on to say that he is “open” to tackling health care again if “Obamacare” implodes. “If [Democrats] got together with us and get a real health care bill, I’d be totally open to it. And I think that’s going to happen. If it loses… Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer… now they own Obamacare. They own it. They 100 percent own it.”
Trump added, “It’s imploding and will soon explode. And it’s not going to be pretty.”
With news outlets reporting that 27 Republicans in the House were solidly in the “no” camp and another four likely to follow, the outcome of the bill was in doubt from the get-go. As of Friday morning, the approval of the GOP health care plan was at 17 percent.
“Why would you schedule a vote on a bill that is at 17% approval? Have we forgotten everything Reagan taught us?” former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tweeted earlier. MSNBC calls it “a failure marked in the official congressional record.”
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told AP, “Today is a victory for the American people.”
Next on President Trump’s agenda: a pivot to tax cuts and tax reform.
9 Movies to Remind You How Bad US Health Care Used to Be - And Might Be Again (Photos)
The Republicans are continuing their attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with the Senate voting to push a repeal bill to floor debate. The bill looks to roll back a number of the protections put in place by the ACA to protect Americans from issues like being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions or hitting lifetime limits on care. But people hated American health care so much before 2010, Hollywood made plenty of movies, TV shows and documentaries about it. Here's a list of films that are a helpful reminder of how American health care used to be in the pre-2010 world.
"As Good As It Gets" (1997) Everyone remembers Jack Nicholson’s obsessive-compulsive jerk of a writer, Melvin. What's easy to forget is he uses his substantial wealth to bail out a waitress (Helen Hunt) from her son’s high medical bills for his asthma. She notes how she gets screwed by — guess who — her HMO when a doctor hired by Melvin shows up to give her son actual, competent medical care.
"Last Holiday" (2006) Greed bad, kindness good. That’s the moral of “Last Holiday,” in which Queen Latifah goes on an expensive vacation after learning she has a brain tumor that will kill her. Of course, her insurance won’t cover risky life-saving surgery. Latifah makes friends with almost everyone she meets at the hotel and they learn from her example. And then it turns out the tumor diagnosis was a mistake, so everyone wins.
"Dallas Buyers Club" (2013) Taking on the Food and Drug Administration rather than insurance companies, “Dallas Buyers Club” focuses on how federal foot-dragging kept life-saving drugs out of the hands of AIDS patients in the 1980s. Matthew McConaughey fights for the right to take an unapproved drug and wins, and learns to be less of a terrible person along the way.
"Critical Care" (1997) Getting the flipside of the healthcare debate, “Critical Care” is all about the level of care you receive when you have good insurance. Focusing on a man in a vegetative state, James Spader finds himself playing a doctor who wonders if it’s ethically cool to just keep people alive (and maybe suffering) because it’s profitable.
"Breaking Bad" (2008) Everyone knows Walter White (Bryan Cranston) becomes Heisenberg, a meth-making Albuquerque kingpin, but they might not remember why: medical bills. Walt receives a cancer diagnosis that he fears will bankrupt his family, and meth is a way for him to leave them enough money to survive before he goes. With issues like pre-existing conditions on their way back, it seems likely lots of people will be searching for extracurricular ways to pay their medical bills, and gofundme campaigns can only go so far.
"Sicko" (2007) Documentarian Michael Moore picks apart the healthcare system and highlights the people it leaves behind. That includes 9/11 first responders in New York. The film digs into the history and issues of the U.S. employer-based insurance system -- a lot of which will come back under the Republican bill -- and compares it to alternatives like those in Cuba, Canada and the United Kingdom.
"The Rainmaker" (1997) A John Grisham David v. Goliath legal story, “The Rainmaker” sees Matt Damon and Danny DeVito take an extremely evil insurance company to court. The extremely evil insurer denies coverage to a couple whose son is dying of leukemia, but Damon and DeVito eventually wallop it in court. The reality of fighting insurance companies in court in the future will likely be less uplifting.
"Saw VI" (2009) The infamous Jigsaw killer targets the guy who denied him insurance coverage for an experimental cancer treatment. Jigsaw’s revenge: Make the guy who decides who lives and who dies for a living do it in a much more hands-on, gory way. At the end of the movie, another family he decided not to cover gets to choose whether to melt the insurance guy with acid. Guess which option they pick.
"John Q" (2002) Denzel Washington plays a man whose son needs a heart transplant, but a technicality means his insurance won't cover it. He takes an emergency room hostage, but, since everyone knows how evil insurance companies are, he manages to befriend everyone there. And then his son gets his operation, and John saves the healthcare system.
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As Trump-threatened repeal vote looms, here’s a look back at how Hollywood covered the problems of the pre-Obamacare healthcare industry
The Republicans are continuing their attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with the Senate voting to push a repeal bill to floor debate. The bill looks to roll back a number of the protections put in place by the ACA to protect Americans from issues like being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions or hitting lifetime limits on care. But people hated American health care so much before 2010, Hollywood made plenty of movies, TV shows and documentaries about it. Here's a list of films that are a helpful reminder of how American health care used to be in the pre-2010 world.
