{"id":12252,"date":"2017-07-19T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-07-19T09:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/07\/19\/trumps-big-repealing-deal-8-thoughts-on-the-senates-health-care-meltdown-moment\/"},"modified":"2017-07-19T09:00:03","modified_gmt":"2017-07-19T09:00:03","slug":"trumps-big-repealing-deal-8-thoughts-on-the-senates-health-care-meltdown-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/trumps-big-repealing-deal-8-thoughts-on-the-senates-health-care-meltdown-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump's Big Repealing Deal: 8 Thoughts On The Senate's Health Care Meltdown Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ron Elving<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell attends a news conference following party policy meeting at the U.S. Capitol on July 11.<\/p>\n

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Carlos Barria\/Reuters<\/p>\n

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Carlos Barria\/Reuters<\/p>\n

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President Trump has summoned all Senate Republicans to the White House Wednesday for a debrief on the state of health care legislation effort in their chamber. Based on the week so far, the meeting may be more like a post<\/em>mortem<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Senate still reportedly<\/a> plans a vote next week on repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan. But it appears the GOP leadership will not have the votes it needs to bring even that fallback version of their legislation to the floor.<\/p>\n

So what happened after seven years of prioritizing the promise to repeal Obamacare? And what does it all mean for what’s next?<\/p>\n

1. The president was AWOL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Few major legislative changes happen without the active support of the White House. We now have another demonstration of why this is true, albeit a demonstration in reverse.<\/p>\n

Trump made the decision to bet the first months of his presidency on a quick “repeal-and-replace” strategy. That decision is now being widely second-guessed. But Trump also failed to put shoulder to the wheel at any stage of the process. Unwilling to engage in the substantive issues, he famously decried the difficulty he had previously denied: “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”<\/a> He then praised the House bill at a self-congratulatory ceremony only to trash it later as “mean”<\/a> while speaking with GOP senators.<\/p>\n