In an early morning Twitter announcement on Thursday, President Donald Trump took out his frustration following last week’s failure of the GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Republican House members who refused to sign onto the American Health Care Act (AHCA) led to the demise of the bill, sponsored by House Speaker Paul Ryan and promoted by Trump.
Donald Trump livid over Health Care Reform failure
Trump has reportedly been pretty livid about the House’s failure to pass the bill last week, deciding instead to can the new act, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said would result in 24 million Americans losing health care, and costs of premiums rising out of the reach of many senior citizens and low-income workers.
Donald Trump uses Twitter to slam fellow Republicans
Trump sent out a tweet on Thursday morning, implying that he would fight against any of the Freedom Caucus Republicans in the upcoming 2018 election if they didn’t acquiesces to the Trump administration’s agenda:
"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast.
We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"
When asked by reporters whether Trump was calling for incumbent Freedom Caucus members to be challenged in upcoming primaries, the White House deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders said that, "The President's tweet speaks for itself."
Trump also criticized the Freedom Caucus earlier this week, tweeting on Monday that they were the cause of the AHCA failure: "The Republican House Freedom Caucus was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After so many bad years they were ready for a win!"
Why Donald Trump's Health Care Plan failed To pass
Many House Freedom Caucus, a group of about 36 of Congress's most hard-core conservative members of the House of Representatives, have been trying to repeal Obamacare for years and were the deciding factor in the failure for the GOP-sponsored plan devised by House Speaker Paul Ryan.
The House should have been able to forward the new legislation without votes from Democrats, however, Freedom Caucus members were unhappy with the new bill, saying it didn't go far enough to strip mandatory coverage included in the basic health care plan. The broad range of basic essential services required by Obamacare caused premiums to rise, according to the caucus, who felt that buyers should be able to reduce coverage for some services in order to lower the cost.
It’s unusual to see a U.S. president display so much bitter hostility toward his own party, and it will be interesting to see whether or not he follows up with his threats in the next election.