Paul Ryan threw Republican senators under the bus on their healthcare failure
Ryan made the comments at a press conference Tuesday morning, the day after two GOP lawmakers announced they would not support the bill, effectively killing it.
Ryan, who led the effort to pass the House version of the healthcare bill, said that the House had fulfilled its responsibilities and that the effort to replace former President Barack Obama's signature legislation now rests fully on the Senate.
"We've done this in the House - we passed our simultaneous repeal and replace bill," Ryan said. "We think that's the solution, we think that's the best way to go, and so we're just gonna have to wait and hope that our friends in the Senate can figure out how they can get a bill passed, get it into conference, or whatever, and get something passed."
Ryan said he and his House colleagues are "proud" of the House bill, also known as the American Health Care Act, which Republican lawmakers in the Senate have attempted to rewrite in an effort to gain support both from hard-right conservatives who want a full Obamacare repeal and more moderate members who oppose deep cuts to Medicaid. The AHCA received very low approval ratings in polls.
"We passed a bill that we think is sufficient to addressing the real problem, to keeping our promise," Ryan said.
Watch a clip of the press briefing here: