TIL Desk/World/Washington-President Donald Trump has expressed disappointment as he faced a severe political defeat after Republicans abandoned their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare policy with a new healthcare bill, due to lack of votes in the US House of Representatives. Trump’s disappointment came after House Speaker Paul Ryan failed to garner enough votes for the passage of the new healthcare bill. Trump had issued an ultimatum to his fellow Republicans after his administration failed to garner enough support for it.
The US House of Representatives — similar to the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament — has 435 members. The Republican party enjoys a simple majority in the House with 235 members. However due to opposition from some of its own party lawmakers, in particular the one that have grouped themselves under the banner of Freedom Caucus, Ryan, who had been leading the effort on behalf of Trump, could not muster the majority 215 votes.
As a result, in an effort to avoid the humiliation of a defeat, Ryan announced that he was withdrawing the move to have a vote on Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Unlike India, the US Congress does not have an anti-defection bill, as a result of which US lawmakers are free to exercise their right to vote on a bill as per their wish and not according to dictate of the party leadership. Blaming the opposition democrats for the failure, Trump warned that now Obamacare is going to stay, people would see a sudden rise in their insurance premium.
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