On his fake news twitter feed, Trump blames Democratic obstruction for the bill's failure.
That's strange. As everyone who follows the truthful news knows, it was two right wing senators who sunk McConnell's Trumpcare proposal. And everyone also knows McConnell has worked in secret on Trumpcare and not involved the Democrats.
The difficulty for the Republicans is some of them have become significantly more ideological in the last 30 years (not true of Democrats) - as measured here: https://voteview.com/about
So it is struggling to write legislation which accommodates Paul, Lee, Sasse, Flake and Cruz on the far right, and also wins over Murkowski, Collins, and Moore Capito to their left. Nice article about the shape of the new GoP here and how that makes legislating difficult: http://theweek.com/articles/711503/why-gop-congress-most-unproductive-164-years
It kinda seems an Ayn Rand virus infected a generation of the GoP. Just as folks who have experienced the problems of excess collectivism know that the socialist model dulls innovation, I guess it will take time before the zealots of individuallism discover the kind of pain that opposing common goods also causes.
Folks should read Dr Seuss' tale of the Zax, or watch the video if they don't read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZmZzGxGpSs
At some point, I hope we can escape the clutches of this nineteenth century argument. It's blindingly obvious that one wants some of each. Nature, economics and mathematics each say in their own way that the combination is efficient. The divide isn't between guns and butter. It's between soda and healthcare. These markets work differently. One's choice of what to drink is simple and mostly individual, based on a person's taste. One's choice of health product relies upon the investment of a whole society, so that we know it is there in the event that we need it - but hopefully we don't need to consume it at all.