Donald Trump suffered a major legislative reversal on Friday as Republicans were forced to pull their repeal of the Affordable Care Act from the House floor. 
 
 After weeks of contentious negotiations over the American Health Care Act (AHCA), Republicans had to admit defeat as they could not gain sufficient support from their own side for the plan to overhaul US health insurance. 
 
 Why the Republican healthcare bill was doomed: a failed political balancing act Read more 
 
 Speaking afterward in the Oval Office, Trump blamed Democrats for the failure of a bill to repeal the signature achievement of Barack Obama. “If [Democrats] got together with us, and got us a real healthcare bill, I’d be totally OK with that. The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because they own Obamacare. They 100% own it,” he said. 
 
 Trump refused to bash the House speaker, Paul Ryan, but declined to answer a question about policy changes he would like to see in health reform. Instead, he said he was ready to move on to tax reform, saying: “We’re probably going to start going very strongly on big tax cuts. Tax reform that will be next.” 
 
 He added: “We all learned a lot. We learned a lot about loyalty.” 
 
 
 
 Earlier on Friday, as it became clear that Republican resistance to the bill was hardening, Ryan went to the White House to tell Trump in person that he did not have the votes to pass the bill. 
 
 The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, had insisted the vote would go ahead at 3.30pm ET. “Has the team put everything out there, have we left everything on the field? Absolutely,” he told reporters at his daily briefing. “But at the end of the day this isn’t a dictatorship and we’ve got to expect members to ultimately vote how they will according to what they think.” 
 
 However, Spicer’s imagined 3.30pm deadline slid by, ignored by Republicans on Capitol Hill, and the first reports emerged that Trump had asked for the vote to be pulled. Minutes later House Republicans, short of votes, had withdrawn the health bill. 
 
 At a press conference soon afterward, Ryan admitted: “Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains and, well, we’re feeling those growing pains today. I will not sugarcoat this: this is a disappointing day for us.” 
 
 He said “doing big things is hard” and conceded that after almost a decade of saying no to everything in opposition, the Republicans had failed to come together and agree on something they have opposed for seven years. “We are going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future,” he said. 
 
 Ryan said he had recommended the bill be pulled when he realized the votes were lacking. But he praised Trump’s role in the negotiations, adding: “The president gave his all in this effort; he’s really been fantastic. Still, we’ve got to do better and we will.” 
 
 Asked how Republican members could now go back to their constituents having failed to keep their promise, Ryan replied: “That’s a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you.” 
 
 
 
 Trump tried to burn down Obamacare. He set his hair on fire instead | Ross Barkan Read more 
 
 Separately, a Washington Post reporter described a call with Trump in which he said the bill would not return any time soon. 
 
 
 
 Ryan also conceded that Republicans would now move on to other priorities – securing the border, rebuilding the military and tax reform. “Now we’re going on to move on with the rest of our agenda because we have big, ambitious plans to improve people’s lives in this country.” 
 
 Although speculation had grown on Friday afternoon that the bill would be pulled, the announcement came as a surprise to Republican members. 
 
 
 
 An emergency meeting of the House Republican Caucus was called shortly before the scheduled vote. As it was announced, the House went to recess, with Democrats shouting in a taunting manner, “Vote, vote, vote”, daring Republicans to bring the bill up. They did not. 
 
 In a short meeting, Ryan announced that the bill was being pulled from the floor in a terse statement to members. 
 
 Many moderates in swing districts were wary of supporting the legislation, which included major cuts to Medicaid and was estimated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to lead to 24 million fewer Americans having health insurance over the next 10 years. 
 
 Conservatives also objected to the legislation for keeping too much of the architecture of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), frequently referred to as Obamacare. Although the Republican leadership made a major concession to them on Thursday by removing the federal mandate that health insurance plans cover “essential health benefits” such as maternity care and mental healthcare, this was not enough to win them over. 
 
 As the Nevada Republican Mark Amodei put it, the GOP caucus “didn’t spend a lot talking about a unified Republican vision for what we should do with healthcare in the House”. Paul Gosar, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, which was instrumental in this setback, pointed a finger at White House staff. 
 
 The result is a major political blow to Paul Ryan, a healthcare policy specialist who led the effort in pushing the AHCA. It also leaves Trump in a vulnerable position. The president ran on a platform of repealing the “disaster” of Obamacare and replacing it with “something terrific”. However, Trump, co-author of The Art of the Deal, failed to accomplish that goal in his first major attempt to negotiate on Capitol Hill. 
 
 Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, called Friday “a great day for our country”, adding: “What happened on the floor was a victory for the American people.” 
 
 
 
 The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement: “Ultimately, the Trumpcare bill failed because of two traits that have plagued the Trump presidency since he took office: incompetence and broken promises. In my life, I have never seen an administration as incompetent as the one occupying the White House today. 
 
 “They can’t write policy that actually makes sense, they can’t implement the policies they do manage to write, they can’t get their stories straight, and today we’ve learned that they can’t close a deal, and they can’t count votes. 
 
 “So much for The Art of the Deal.” 
 
 Members of the Republican caucus took different lessons from the failure to even bring the AHCA to the vote. 
 
 Louie Gohmert of Texas, an arch-conservative who was opposed to the bill, pointed fingers at House leadership, which he implied had left both rank and file and Trump boxed in with no alternative. 
 
 “The president didn’t really get involved until after they created this bill and he was fighting for it,” Gohmert said. 
 
 Bradley Byrne, a loyal Republican from southern Alabama, expressed his readiness to still vote for the AHCA after it was pulled. He mourned the fact that House Republicans fell just short, in his opinion. “There were 200 plus ... ready to do whatever it takes and ... with that group of people we can do a lot,” said Byrne. He didn’t blame anyone for the setback, praising both Ryan and Trump, who he described as doing a “great job”. 
 
 Republicans wondered whether this doomed any hope of healthcare reform. Gohmert seemed to sympathize with Trump’s desire to move on to tax reform, adding: “If I were president, I wouldn’t deal with healthcare any more, but as a legislator it is a problem and we should pick it back up and do it right.” 
 
 Speaking before the bill was pulled, the North Carolina congressman Mark Walker, chair of the Republican Study Committee, told reporters: “I can’t pretend that this is a win for us. I’m sure our friends on the left, this is a good moment for them. In fact, probably that champagne that wasn’t popped back in November may be utilized this evening.” ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201703/1681/1155968404_5371823017001_5371796654001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Congress Republicans yank Obamacare repeal bill It's a staggering setback for President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan. 
 
 Facing a growing rebellion within his own ranks, Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the Republican Obamacare replacement plan from the House floor on Friday just before a scheduled vote. 
 
 The decision is a staggering defeat for Ryan and President Donald Trump in their first attempt to partner on major legislation and fulfill a seven-year Republican promise to repeal Obamacare. And it comes a day after Trump issued an ultimatum to House Republicans to vote for the bill or live with Obamacare. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 GOP lawmakers decided they can, in fact, live with Obamacare, at least for now. 
 
 A Republican leadership aide said Trump and Ryan spoke by phone at 3 p.m. and that the president asked the speaker to pull the bill. Ryan told reporters that his advice to Trump was to cancel the vote. 
 
 But the reality is that Ryan and his leadership team had been bleeding votes all day and were not close to passing the American Health Care Act. The speaker went to the White House and told Trump as much just an hour earlier. 
 
 Republicans were begging Ryan and party leaders to pull the bill to save them from having to vote on an unpopular measure. But Trump badly wanted to move ahead so he would "know who my friends are," he said, according to a Republican lawmaker who met with him. Democrats were unwavering in their opposition, and conservative outside groups despised the bill from the start. 
 
 And while GOP leaders had called Trump "the ulimate closer," he wasn't able to move many votes, especially among hard-line conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus. Trump admitted after the bill was pulled that he was "10 to 15 votes" shy of victory, a stunning margin considering how much effort he and Ryan had put into their lobbying campaign during the last week. 
 
 Ryan also knew, though, that if the bill had come up for a vote, it would have failed by a much larger margin than the whip counts. Once rank-and-file members knew it would fail, they'd reverse course and vote "no" in order to protect themselves politically, which their leaders would bless. That much larger margin of defeat would be an even bigger setback for Trump. In a sense, Ryan protected Trump from his own combative instincts, said GOP insiders. 
 
 "I will not sugarcoat this, this is a disappointing day for us," Ryan said at a press conference following the stunning announcement. "This is a setback, no two ways about it." 
 
 Ryan admitted that the Affordable Care Act, enacted seven years earlier almost to the day, "remains the law of the land... We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future." 
 
 Ryan insisted Trump was not at fault for the failure. 
 
 "The president gave his all in this effort," Ryan added. "He's been fantastic." 
 
 The Freedom Caucus — the group that took down Speaker John Boehner — remained unwilling to compromise with Trump and Ryan, believing that their bill didn't do nearly enough to unwind Obamacare. 
 
 "Some of the members of that caucus were voting with us, but not enough were," Ryan said. "I met with their chairman today, and he made it clear that the votes weren't going to be there from their team. And that was sufficient to provide the balance of votes to have this not pass." 
 
 Democrats, for their part, were doing cartwheels in the Capitol. They've bloodied Trump, bashed Ryan, and showed that even in a GOP-run Washington, they still matter big time. 
 
 “Today is a great day for our country," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "It's a victory. What happened on the floor is a victory for the American people — for our seniors, for people with disabilities, for our children, for our veterans." 
 
 On the other side of the aisle, the internal GOP finger-pointing has already begun, showing the long-term damage inside the Republican Conference from this fight. 
 
 Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who helped craft the Republican health care legislation, was livid after the decision to pull the bill. 
 
 "The architects of Obamacare, they own this damn thing," the Texas Republican said. "There were people who were not interested in solving the problem. They win today." 
 
 Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), a member of the Freedom Caucus, said the bill's demise was a "good day for America." 
 
 Despite Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows' central role in defeating the bill and thus leaving Obamacare as the law of the land, the North Carolina Republican insisted he still wanted to repeal the Democratic health care law. 
 
 "I remain wholeheartedly committed to following through on this promise," Meadows said in a statement. "President Trump is committed to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a system that works for American families, and I look forward to working with him to do just that." 
 
 Trump has staked his early presidency on repealing and replacing Obamacare, embracing his image as a dealmaker and closer throughout the process. House leaders were happy to oblige as well, referring to Trump as “the ultimate closer” as he met with reluctant House members. 
 
 “He’s left everything on the field when it comes to this bill,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Friday afternoon, describing Trump as working tirelessly to get the bill across the finish line. He added, “You can’t force someone to vote a certain way.” 
 
 Breaking News Alerts Get breaking news when it happens — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. 
 
 As Ryan and his allies scrambled to convince wary colleagues to back their health care plan, they watched as conservative and moderates in their caucus began to declare their opposition. As defections mounted, Ryan traveled to the White House to reveal to Trump his faltering whip count – and to discuss whether to pull the bill. But the administration seemed intent on proceeding as planned. 
 
 “We want the vote," a senior administration official said as Ryan made his way up Pennsylvania Avenue. "If they want to go against the president, they should do it on live TV." 
 
 Ultimately, though, Ryan prevailed. Moderate Republicans such as Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock and Ohio Rep. David Joyce disclosed their opposition even as Ryan was meeting with Trump. It became clear early Friday afternoon that the bill was poised for defeat, as members on the fence broke against it. 
 
 The bill met sharp resistance from both ends of the Republican caucus, as hard-line conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus contended it failed to do away with Obamacare’s core components and moderates argued that its curbs on Medicaid could harm vulnerable constituents. Ultimately, those competing pressures proved irreconcilable. 
 
 Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a moderate who came out against the bill two days ago, insisted that Friday's debacle was actually not a big deal and said it’s time to “move on." 
 
 "There are a lot of people in this building who talk and say everything is catastrophic and cataclysmic, well we know that’s not the case," Dent said. "If you want to do health care reform, do it on a bipartisan basis…. We have to sit down and regroup.” 
 
 Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) warned it wasn’t the end of Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare. 
 
 “The game is not over, so it’s not a win or loss," he said. ”We’re gonna get back together after we get a weekend’s rest, we’re going to assess where we are. The votes were razor thin, from what I understand, so we’re close to where we need to be." ||||| House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisc., walks from the House Chamber to his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 24, 2017, as the House nears a vote on their health care overhaul. (AP Photo/Cliff... (Associated Press) 
 
 House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisc., walks from the House Chamber to his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 24, 2017, as the House nears a vote on their health care overhaul. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the effort in Congress to pass the Republican health care bill (all times local): 
 
 4:50 p.m. 
 
 House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is mocking House Republicans for failing to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's health law. 
 
 Pelosi says of President Donald Trump and the majority Republicans in Congress: "Quite frankly I thought they might have accomplished something in the first few months. They have absolutely no record of accomplishment." 
 
 At the White House, Trump blamed Democrats for the defeat of the bill. He noted that no Democrat supported the bill. 
 
 Pelosi says, "We'll take credit for that." 
 
 ___ 
 
 4:30 p.m. 
 
 Speaker Paul Ryan says the collapse of the House Republican health care bill means former President Barack Obama's health care law will be around for the foreseeable future. 
 
 The Wisconsin Republican addressed reporters minutes after GOP leaders abruptly shelved the legislation, averted likely defeat for the bill. But it still dealt a damaging setback to President Donald Trump, Ryan and an entire party that has long said it wants to annul Obama's statute. 
 
 Ryan says pulling the bill was "a setback, no two ways about it." 
 
 The speaker is chiding Republicans who refused to back the legislation for being too inflexible. He says lawmakers must be "willing to give a little to get something done." 
 
 Many conservative and moderate Republicans opposed the legislation. 
 
 ___ 
 
 1:55 p.m. 
 
 The White House is no longer expressing confidence that the upcoming House vote on health care will be successful. 
 
 Instead, spokesman Sean Spicer says President Donald Trump is confident that the White House has done "every single thing possible" to corral the 216 votes needed to pass legislation to repeal the Obama-era health care law. 
 
 House lawmakers and aides say the bill is short of support before the vote Trump insists be held. 
 
 The White House says it expects that vote at 3:30 p.m., as scheduled. 
 
 ___ 
 
 1:30 p.m. 
 
 The White House says it still remains optimistic about a troubled Republican-led health care bill to repeal and replace "Obamacare." 
 
 White House press secretary Sean Spicer says President Donald Trump is looking forward to the House passing the bill and it expects the House to vote on the bill later Friday. 
 
 Spicer says the president is meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan to "discuss the way forward" on the bill. 
 
 He says the president has "left everything on the field" on the bill. 
 
 According to GOP lawmakers and congressional aides, House Republican leaders were short of the votes needed for the bill to pass. 
 
 ___ 
 
 1:20 p.m. 
 
 House Republican leaders were short of the votes needed for their health care overhaul bill hours ahead of a vote demanded by President Donald Trump. 
 
 That's the word Friday from GOP lawmakers and congressional aides as Speaker Paul Ryan met with the president at the White House to deliver the sobering news. 
 
 Separately, Vice President Mike Pence was meeting near the Capitol with recalcitrant members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus in a last-ditch effort to secure support. 
 
 Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., told reporters, "As of right now, I'm not sure that we are across the finish line. We've still got three or four hours and there's still discussions happening." 
 
 ___ 
 
 12:40 p.m. 
 
 Democrats and some veterans groups say a provision of the Republican health care bill could raise costs for millions of veterans who use tax credits to buy private insurance. An amendment to the bill would make veterans who are not enrolled in government care ineligible for health-care tax credits. 
 
 Republicans said the veterans' provision could be added back into the bill later. 
 
 Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who lost both legs in combat in Iraq, said Republicans either were "intentionally sacrificing veterans and putting them on a chopping block" or wrote the bill so "haphazardly" they don't know what's in it. 
 
 Minnesota Rep. Tim Walz, the top Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs panel, called the GOP plan "shameful" and said it would leave many veterans without affordable insurance options. 
 
 ___ 
 
 12:30 p.m. 
 
 House Speaker Paul Ryan is at the White House to brief President Donald Trump on the state of play on the health care bill. 
 
 The visit comes ahead of a planned showdown vote on the legislation later in the day Friday. 
 
 The outcome was looking dicey with the legislation apparently still short of votes around midday, and few public signs that the situation was changing. 
 
 A group of conservative hold-outs had yet to swing in favor despite lobbying from Trump and others, while opposition also came from moderate-leaning and rank-and-file Republicans. 
 
 The legislation is the GOP's long-promised bill to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's health care law. Trump decided Thursday that negotiations were over and it was time to vote. 
 
 ___ 
 
 12:25 p.m. 
 
 House Democrats are trying to make the vote on the House GOP health plan personal for their Republican counterparts. 
 
 After each Republican speaks on the House floor in favor of the bill, Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., cites the number of people in their congressional district who will lose health insurance under the bill. 
 
 Under the bill, 24 million fewer people will have health insurance by 2026, according to congressional estimates. 
 
 Rep. Clay Higgins, a Republican from Louisiana, proclaimed that a vote against the bill is "a vote against freedom." 
 
 Yarmuth replied that the bill would result in 50,100 people from his Higgins' congressional district losing health coverage. 
 
 Republicans disputed the numbers. They noted that Yarmuth got his congressional district estimates from the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy group. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:05 a.m. 
 
 Republicans have pushed the GOP health care overhaul past an initial procedural hurdle in the House. That moves the chamber toward a climactic final vote that's a big gamble for President Donald Trump and congressional leaders. 
 
 Friday's procedural vote was 230-194. 
 
 The early vote inserted changes into the measure that leaders hoped would win over unhappy Republicans. It would improve Medicaid benefits for some older and handicapped people and abolish coverage requirements President Barack Obama's 2010 law imposes on insurers. 
 
 It remained uncertain whether GOP leaders had enough votes to prevail on final passage. 
 
 Conservatives complain the Republican bill doesn't do enough to erase Obama's law. GOP moderates are unhappy that it would cause millions of voters to lose coverage and boost medical costs for others. 
 
 Democrats were solidly opposed. 
 
 ___ 
 
 10:45 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump says, "we'll see what happens," in response to a question about what happens if the vote on the Republican-backed health care bill fails in the House. 
 
 Trump is offering his support for House Speaker Paul Ryan at a White House event announcing the presidential permit about the Keystone XL pipeline. Asked if Ryan should remain as speaker if the bill fails, Trump says, "Yes." 
 
 The administration is trying to steer a GOP-backed health care bill through the House. The White House and Republican leaders say the vote will be tight and it's unclear if the legislation will pass. 
 
 ___ 
 
 8:40 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump is telling lawmakers who oppose abortion that a vote against the health care bill would favor Planned Parenthood. 
 
 The president tweeted Friday, "the irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!" 
 
 In a bid to coax support from conservatives, House leaders proposed a fresh amendment repealing Obama's requirement that insurers cover 10 specified services like maternity and mental health care. 
 
 Lawmakers will vote later Friday. 
 
 Conservatives have demanded the removal of those and other conditions the law imposes on insurers, arguing they drive up premiums. 
 
 The president met with members of the Freedom Caucus Thursday in an effort to win them over. But the vote was postponed after administration officials fell short. 
 
 ___ 
 
 8:25 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump is endorsing the Republican proposal on health care as "a great plan," ahead of a make-or-break vote in the House. 
 
 The president tweeted Friday that "After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!" 
 
 The vote had been scheduled for late Thursday but was postponed after administration officials failed to convince skeptical conservative Republicans to support the bill. 
 
 Trump claimed he was finished negotiating with GOP holdouts and determined to pursue the rest of his agenda, win or lose. 
 
 Barring any further delays, the vote is expected to take place later Friday. 
 
 __ 
 
 7:50 a.m. 
 
 White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney says he has "a lot of confidence" in President Donald Trump's ability to salvage a congressional Republican health care plan, but warns that Trump "also wants to move on" if the deal collapses. 
 
 Mulvaney said Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America" of the president: "He's a tremendous closer. I wouldn't count him out." 
 
 Mulvaney delivered a similar message to House Republicans Thursday night, warning that Trump would turn to other priorities such as a tax overhaul if the health plan pushed by House Speaker Paul Ryan is rejected by rebels in his own party. 
 
 Mulvaney also rejected a new Congressional Budget Office analysis that warns the latest health plan version would reduce cost savings by $200 billion. "The CBO score is just wrong on that," Mulvaney said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 7:55 a.m. 
 
 A lack of women in a photo of negotiations over the GOP health care bill that was tweeted out by Vice President Mike Pence is drawing criticism from Democrats. 
 
 The photo shows Pence at the center of a conference table during negotiations with the House Freedom Caucus. About two dozen men can be seen in the photo and not a single woman. 
 
 Washington U.S. Sen. Patty Murray drew attention to the absence of women in the room by retweeting the photo and sarcastically adding, "A rare look inside the GOP's women's health caucus." 
 
 A repeal of a maternity care requirement is among the concessions the Freedom Caucus is demanding in exchange for support of the bill.
– A House vote on the American Health Care Act was canceled just before it was scheduled to happen, avoiding what the AP says would have been a "humiliating defeat" for President Trump and GOP leaders while still being—according to Politico—a "staggering defeat" for Trump and Paul Ryan. On Thursday, Trump had demanded a vote on the Republican replacement for ObamaCare despite it appearing primed to fail. On Friday, CNN reports Trump called Ryan and asked him to pull the bill without a vote. Sean Spicer says Trump "left everything on the field" trying to make a deal to get the AHCA approved. Hospital and insurer stocks saw an immediate improvement with the news there would be no vote, according to Reuters.