White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday afternoon that the Republican plan to “repeal and replace” Obamacare isn’t dead, but the Obamacare system itself soon will be regardless.
Spicer said that President Donald Trump and Republican leadership’s plan to dismantle former President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation is still very much alive, despite the decision to pull the American Health Care Act from a vote just hours before it was scheduled to take place on the House floor.
“I don’t think its dead,” Spicer said at Monday’s White House press briefing. Spicer believes that Democrats, who remain united in their staunch opposition to repealing Obamacare, will come around as the system continues to unravel. Democrats and Republican defectors will come around to the idea of negotiating because Obamacare “is dying on its own,” Spicer said.
WATCH:
Reporter: “Is Obamacare repeal dead?”@PressSec: “I don’t think it’s dead…[Obamacare] is dying on its own.” https://t.co/Okz2bwUl4f pic.twitter.com/nHCBhGa83C
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 27, 2017
“Part of it is there is a recognition that it is failing. It is dying on its own. It will be dead soon,” Spicer said. “I think that we recognize that premiums continue to go sky high, deductibles continue to go sky high, and choices are going down.”
The president is now reportedly focusing on tax reform and pursuing his pro-growth “America First” economic agenda. Trump is saying he will let Obamacare continue to implode, in hopes of bringing wayward Republicans and hard-line Democrats to the negotiating table when things get too bad.
U.S. stock indexes notched a six-week low as markets opened for trading Monday morning in reaction to Friday’s decision to pull the bill from the floor.
Bank and financial stocks were taking a serious hit Monday morning, departing from a near three month long trend of posting historic gains since Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Goldman Sachs was down more than 4 percent, Bank of America was down 3.6 percent, and JP Morgan was down 2 percent in intraday trading Monday morning. Bank of America and JP Morgan were also the biggest drags on the S&P 500 Monday.
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