Paul Ryan: 'We're still moving forward on healthcare'
"When we're in Florida, I will lay out the path forward on healthcare and all the rest of the agenda," Ryan reportedly said on a call with donors, referring to a donor retreat scheduled for later this week.
"I will explain how it all still works, and how we're still moving forward on health care with other ideas and plans. So please make sure that if you can come, you come - it will be good to look at what can feasibly get done and where things currently stand. But know this: We are not giving up."
GOP leadership pulled its bill to overhaul the US healthcare system from what looked almost certain to be a failed floor vote in the House on Friday, in a blow to President Donald Trump's agenda and Ryan's leadership of his caucus.
It was pulled after it became clear that Republicans did not have enough votes to pass the bill.
Ryan doubled down amid suggestions that Republicans are planning on sidelining healthcare and moving right on to tax reform.
"We're not going to just all of a sudden abandon healthcare and move on to the rest," Ryan reportedly said on the call. "We are going to move on with rest of our agenda, keep that on track, while we work the healthcare problem. . . . It's just that valuable, that important."
Ryan also reportedly suggested that Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, would "explode" on its own.
"If the Democrats - when it explodes, which it will soon - if they got together with us and got a real healthcare bill,I''d be totally open to it, and I think that's going to happen," he said.