Congressman Daniel Webster was among a group of Republican holdouts forcing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on Friday afternoon to pull the proposed replacement for Obamacare.
“We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future,” Ryan said in a news conference.
He had traveled to the White House earlier in the day to meet with President Donald Trump who agreed with Ryan’s plan to pull the bill.
“I wish we had the consensus we needed,” Ryan said. “We need 216 people in the House to agree with each other. We were close. Now we are going to move ahead with our agenda.”
Ryan said he would now focus his efforts on tax reform and securing the U.S. border with Mexico.
Webster, a Clermont Republican who represents The Villages in the U.S. House of Representatives, said he was “very concerned” about the impact the GOP bill would have on the demand for Medicaid beds in Florida hospitals and nursing homes.
“For six years, I have advocated for repealing the [un]Affordable Care Act and replacing it with real healthcare reform. Obamacare is collapsing across the country – currently 4.7 million people are without an insurer. This failed policy is raising costs for patients and forcing insurers out of the marketplace, which leaves patients and families with nowhere to go,” Webster said in a statement issued by his office Friday night.
“As I have said, I have concerns with the bill that was to come up for a vote today. In particular, it does not provide the dollars needed for the Medicaid-funded nursing home beds that many of our seniors rely on. I have expressed these concerns to House leadership and the administration. It is my hope that House and Senate leadership and the administration will work together and bring to the floor the conservative, common-sense healthcare reform that Americans deserve,” the statement said.
Val Demings, a Democrat who in November won Webster’s former Congressional seat in District 10, chided the GOP.
“Overwhelmingly the American people have voiced their opposition to the Republican’s plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The voices of the American people were heard, and we will not be forced to live through the harmful effects this bill would have had,” Demings said.
