The Republicans dramatically failed to repeal and replace Obamacare on Friday in a sharp rebuff of a plan backed by both House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and President Donald Trump.

The withdrawal of the American Health Care Act, before it would lose in an official vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, is permanent. This particular repeal bill will not come back up, GOP leaders said.

“Obamacare is in for some rough days … It’s in for some rough, rough days.”

Ryan said the Republicans were likely to move on to tax reform, but a bill in that vein won’t be available for about two months, according to Fox News.

But Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, said the tax-code reform was on a “parallel track,” so work has been steady on tax research. That won’t speed things up.

Trump appears to want to move on a tax bill, while Obamacare continues to fail. Trump said tax reform — including the long-desired reduction in the very-high corporate tax rate — would be welcome.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he expects to move on first to tax reform, and expects Democrats to join in, as tax reform is much more popular than the American Health Care Act was.

What are the other options?

Letting It Fail
Trump also has said Obamacare is failing.

Republicans have been noting, since the Obamacare “exchanges” came online in 2013, that the program has been plagued with major flaws — from the website to the costs.

Now, one-third of U.S. counties are down to one insurance program that takes part in Obamacare. That’s crucial, as Obamacare mandates individual coverage, and forces tax penalties upon people if they go uninsured.

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Trump was so eager to take about the possibility of further Obamacare failure, he called a reporter at The Washington Post on his cellphone after the House announced the bill had been pulled.

“I’ll fix it as it explodes,” Trump told Post reporter Robert Costa. “They’re going to come to ask for help. They’re going to have to. Here’s the good news: Health care is now totally the property of the Democrats.”

House conservatives agree somewhat.

“Obamacare is a disaster,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), after the bill was pulled. Jordan is former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, the group of 40 conservatives who helped kill the bill.

But Obamacare has been in jeopardy for a while, and none of that motivated House Republicans to address it on Friday.

Try Again
Letting it fail also means trying again.

That’s exactly what conservative groups want, and they celebrated the death of the unpopular American Health Care Act on Friday.

“There is a way forward: Take the three phases of President Trump’s agenda and put them all into a new House bill,” said David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, in a statement. “Unite Obamacare repeal with the repeal of Obamacare regulations, and add in the free-market, cost-saving reforms that the president campaigned on, including interstate competition. Give the House a straight up-or-down vote on that measure. Republican voters will rally behind it with overwhelming support, and the Senate can take it up and address its rules.”

Hal Needham, CEO of Heritage Action (which also opposed the bill), also wants the Congress to address full repeal.

“Unfortunately, it became apparent this week that many supporters of the bill were hiding behind faux procedural concerns to avoid the substantive divides in the Republican conference over maintaining Obamacare’s regulatory architecture,” Needham said. “Today’s events gives [sic] conservatives a chance to reset that debate.”

The groups threatened congressmen with negative “scores” if they voted for the repeal bill.

But so far, Senate Republican leadership has declined to indicate they are willing to change the rules to pass all of Obamacare repeal with a simple Senate majority.

Still, the conservative groups have a kindred spirit in U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who railed against the repeal bill. Paul helped kill the bill by calling it “Obamacare Lite.”

On Friday, Paul said he would move to pass a complete repeal.

Paul’s office said his Obamacare Replacement Act would empower Americans to choose inexpensive insurance free of government dictates; save unlimited amounts in a health savings accounts; buy insurance across state lines; and join together in voluntary associations to gain the leverage of being part of a large insurance pool.

Much of Paul’s sales pitch will require Obamacare to fail further. Trump thinks that will happen.

“Obamacare is in for some rough days,” he told the Post. “You understand that. It’s in for some rough, rough days.”

But for the best part of 2017, Obamacare is safe and sound — because after seven years, and after dozens of repeal votes, Republicans now cannot agree what to do.