'Being against things was easy to do'

How Obamacare's failed repeal foreshadowed House speaker chaos

One perk of being a reporter in Washington: you get to witness history.

Sometimes it’s not the history you expected to see.

Way back in early 2017, in the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Affordable Care Act seemed like a dead law walking.¹ Republicans had campaigned for years on Obamacare repeal; many congressmen had built their careers by being anti-ACA. Now the GOP finally controlled all three branches of government, led by a president who had pledged to kill the law too.

But then…

Republicans couldn’t agree on what to do, and the fight became vicious and public. Among the various accusations: that the GOP's health care bill was being drafted in secret. That the new bill preserved too much of Obamacare’s vision. That Republican leaders had spent years promising an ACA “replacement,” but never figured out one that could pass Congress.²

President Trump, bored of the policy process but hungry for a political victory, demanded that House Republicans vote to repeal the ACA on March 23, 2017 — the law’s seven-year anniversary. It was not to be. Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill right before the planned vote. Amid the chaos, Ryan knew he was going to lose.

One key reason: Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and their House Freedom Caucus allies had refused to back Ryan’s bill. They said it wasn’t conservative enough — and they were willing to tank Republicans’ vote in hopes of getting a bill they liked more later.

But Trump was insistent. So Republican leaders vowed to try again the next day.

I remember showing up on Capitol Hill the morning of March 24, 2017, amid a crackle of nervous energy and in the wake of pro-ACA protests around the country. Sitting in the hidey-hole that Politico reporters used as an office, my friends and I traded gossip, talked to sources, filed short updates. No one knew what was going to happen.

Then Speaker Ryan canceled the vote for a second time. Obamacare was still alive. And the Freedom Caucus had won.

Inside our little office, we heard someone in the hallway yell and go running. The next few minutes remain a blur to me. I assume there was frantic writing, texting, calling.

What I do remember is stepping into the hallway to take a call for a radio interview. And as I stood there, starting to explain on-air what had just happened …

… I turned and saw Speaker Ryan, and his team, grimly striding toward and then past me. I quickly got off the phone.

Seconds later, Ryan was on camera, giving a speech where he didn’t blame a single member or even the Freedom Caucus.³

He indicted the whole party.

RYAN: Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains. And, well, we're feeling those growing pains today. We came really close today, but we came up short…

We were a 10-year opposition party … being against things was easy to do.

It’s been more than six years — more than 2,400 days — but I still think about that press conference and those moments of candor from Ryan. His admission that Republicans had spent so long saying “no,” they weren’t ready or even able to get to “yes.”

It’s hard to miss the parallels while watching House Republicans struggle and self-sabotage in their attempts to pick a new Speaker this year.

Some of the same lawmakers who short-circuited Affordable Care Act repeal in early 2017 are key players in this year’s Speaker circus. Some of the same dynamics — the tension between conservatives and “compromise” — are repeating themselves. And the fights, once again, are deep and personal. (The party, however, is even more divided today; its extremes, more extreme.)

The “growing pains” that Ryan talked about six years ago appear to have become a chronic condition.

It’s a mystery how the Speaker race will turn out.

Of course, we do know how the Affordable Care Act repeal effort turned out: it was a disaster for Republicans.

ACA repeal absorbed months of lawmakers’ attention, preventing the GOP from pivoting to other priorities. Even after House Republicans finally passed a repeal bill in May 2017, it died in the Senate that summer — accomplishing little more than embarrassing hundreds of lawmakers and angering voters. Democrats won back the House in the next election.

And a year after that speech, Ryan would announce he was retiring as a congressman. Frustrations with his party helped drive him out of Washington at an age — 48 years old — when many lawmakers are just getting started.

It’s fascinating to look back on that moment with today’s eyes. At the time, Paul Ryan’s tenure as Speaker felt constantly imperiled — like a house built on a tower of Jenga bricks. These days, with Speaker candidacies collapsing almost as soon as they’re stood up, his four years in charge now seem like some lost era of stability.

1. In early 2017, about two-thirds of people participating in a forecasting tournament run by The Monkey Cage Blog predicted that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate would soon be repealed.

2. There was more than a little truth to these accusations, especially the secretive process for drafting the bill and the failings of party leaders’ Obamacare replacement. For more on those dynamics, read this terrific Tim Alberta piece from Politico Magazine that reconstructs “the GOP’s health care debacle.”

3. From the CNN transcript:
REPORTER: Mr. Speaker, can you explain if it is the conservatives of the Freedom Caucus who effectively drove out your predecessor, John Boehner, are they responsible for the defeat here today?

RYAN: Well, I don't want to cast blame. There is a bloc of “no” votes that we had, that is why this didn't pass. They were a sufficient number of votes that prevented it from passing, and they didn't change their votes. We were close.