After The AHCA Failed, Does Trump Have A Plan B?

It's been just moments since the AHCA vote was canceled on Friday, March 24, but, as we've all become accustomed to do with President Trump in the White House, only one question remains: will another bill follow the AHCA? And if it does, how much more gruesome will the cuts to American families in need be? In a post updated throughout the week, The New York Times counted roughly 47 Republicans who were "concerned or outwardly opposed to the bill" as final negotiations took place, which spelled early trouble for top-tier House Republicans looking to push the vote through ahead of the weekend. According to ABC News, sources say that the president made a phone call to Speaker Paul Ryan at 3 p.m. instructing him to "pull the bill." At a press conference on Friday, March 24, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that even though both the president and Ryan had done everything they could with the bill, leaving it all on the field, they couldn't force anyone to vote. All campaign long, Trump promised he'd replace Obamacare with "something terrific," a message that so many of his supporters took to heart, eagerly awaiting a plan that would speak to their needs. In a July 2015 interview with Forbes.com, Trump's campaign gave an interview where they promised the Trump alternative to Obamacare would provide Americans with more choices:

Mr. Trump will be proposing a health plan that will return authority to the states and operate under free market principles. Mr. Trump's plan will provide choice to the buyer, provide individual tax relief for health insurance and keep plans portable and affordable. The plan will break the health insurance company monopolies and allow individuals to buy across state lines.

But here's where things get interesting,

ABC News reported on Friday, via a GOP aide, that White House budget director Mick Mulvaney suggested to other Republican legislators that if the House didn't vote in the AHCA, the president was prepared to leave Obamacare (the plan he staunchly opposes, and the biggest campaign promise he ran on) in place. So if Trump sensed even the possibility of failure on the House floor, why put the vote up anyway if he planned to keep Obamacare in place? And is that really what's going to happen now that the AHCA met its own bitter end?

Right now, while Ryan and Trump deal with the fall out from the bill's failure, it doesn't look like immediate plans are in place to coax together a new health care plan to benefit American failures. Romper reached out to the White House for comment on whether or not the president will introduce a new bill as an alternative to AHCA, but did not hear back at the time of publication.

Right now, the messaging seems to be clear: many suggest that Trump will move "on" from healthcare. Sounds like that's the best thing he could do for all Americans.