Great move by the Republicans. Now the democrats have one platform less to run on. Sneaky Republicans.

I guess the Republicans deemed it'd be too unpopular to pass it. If they thought they would have been able to get away with it, they would have done.

They could but a failure on this mangnitute will likely force them to focus on other things to correct path and heal public image. If they came around with the same goal in even a matter of years, it would be perceived as treading ground, aiming for the same doomed goal over and over again. They want a long list of successes, not one phallic victory, so they'll probably look to softer targets.

Apparently the Trump administration and Ryan have both admitted as such, and they will move on to other things while blaming other people for their own shortsightedness (seriously, how could they spend 7 years bitching and screaming over ACA and not actually come up with anything better?). ACA obviously needs to change, as do many things in our society, but it needs to change in a way that doesn't bring immediate or long-term harm to the people who need it.

Let me guess, Trump is calling this a victory because Republicans stopped a terrible healthcare bill and Democrats didn't with Obamacare.

No it's more that he's blaming them for partisanship by not helping craft a better proposal, which, while perhaps true in the sense that Democrats do not want a Republican-minded healthcare system by any measure, is remarkable for how much credit he seems to be giving Democrats.

The thing about American government is that substantive, universal changes happen with the regularity of miracles, namely because they either take full bipartisan support (most innocuous bills that fail do so because more extreme partisan additions are sneakily added in the process) or an overwhelming share of power by one party. Once something becomes the law of the land it is extremely difficult to turn around, as all of those republican congressmen now represented people who relied on ACA, as flawed as it is. ACA is in practice, so either side can't rely on theoretical outcomes anymore for the arguments for or against.

To be fair, the system is designed this way, as fast acting change is often massively destabalizing, and the process of extreme vetting and slow, arduous change prevents most shortsighted or downright sinister proposals to go through. Emphasis on most though. I can think of a pretty large number of decisions I feel had drastically poor outcomes on the American people...

I'm not entirely familiar with the American health care system, but judging by what I've heard, this is great news. Trump's alternative didn't really sound all that great, even though the Obamacare probably is flawed.

Thank God. The bill was awful.

I guess when something doesn't work, they don't instate it anyway. 

Hmm.