The White House signaled on Monday that President Trump could continue behind-the-scenes negotiations on healthcare, this time with lawmakers from both parties, even as Republicans publicly turn their attention away from Obamacare and to tax reform.
Days after Trump told reporters he will now wait for Obamacare to “collapse” before revisiting healthcare reform, a top spokesman for the administration suggested the president may be open to reviving deliberations on repeal-and-replace legislation.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the end of healthcare,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.
Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled legislation to overhaul the current healthcare system last week after failing to whip up enough GOP votes in the House, despite offering several concessions to conservative holdouts who wanted a clean repeal of Obamacare and were notably dissatisfied with the bill introduced by GOP leadership.
The White House subsequently announced that Trump and Ryan would move on to tax reform and other policy issues in the wake of their healthcare failure.
But Spicer’s comments on Monday suggest the door has yet to be closed and locked on healthcare. He said Trump is “absolutely” willing to work with Democrats who come to the table and with Republicans who prefer to continue working toward a solution.
“I would say we are looking for a way forward,” he explained. “There has been a lot of outreach from members of both sides about this idea. Obviously we’re willing to listen and move forward.”
“If [Democrats] want to come back to the table and recognize how we can do it in a more responsible way… we’re willing to have that discussion,” he added.
Spicer was also quick to note that Obamacare “went through a series of fits and starts” before Democrats finally passed the sweeping healthcare law in 2010.
Some Republican lawmakers have criticized the White House and party leaders for moving too quickly on healthcare, noting that it took Democrats nine months to pass the Affordable Care Act. Others have said abandoning healthcare reform after barely three weeks of debate would be imprudent.
“We cannot walk away now, without even a vote,” Congressman Luke Messer, R-Ind., said Monday on the House floor.
Trump had advised Republicans to “let Obamacare go its own way for awhile” after pulling the replacement bill last Friday. Though it is unclear whether Spicer was referring to short or long-term actions on healthcare, the press secretary said Monday that Trump “wants to get things done.”
“Obamacare is an abysmal failure [and] it will be dead soon,” he said. “I think what this event on Friday did was frankly draw more people into the process, to say, ‘OK let’s figure out if we can actually come together with some consensus ideas, to get to 218 [votes], whether or not they come from one side of the aisle or the other, to pass this bill and make a better system.”
