Paul Ryan tells donors that Republicans will continue fighting for health care reform

Days after failing to pass his health care legislation, Speaker Paul Ryan reportedly promised GOP donors that House Republicans will continue their push to repeal and replace Obamacare.

In a phone call through his political organisation, the Republican leader said that his party will work on reform on two separate tracks and will reveal more details during a Florida retreat later this week.

“We are going to keep getting at this thing,” he said, according to the Washington Post. “We’re not going to just all of a sudden abandon health care and move on to the rest. We are going to move on with rest of our agenda, keep that on track, while we work the health care problem... It’s just that valuable, that important.”

He continued, “When we’re in Florida, I will lay out the path forward on health care and all the rest of the agenda. 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.”

Over the course of several weeks, Republicans pushed the American Healthcare Act to fulfil their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Even with the White House’s approval, Republicans couldn’t garner enough votes to pass the legislation, forcing them to pull the bill on two separate days before spiking it for good.

Nevertheless, Democratic leaders promised to once again help defeat any health care reform the GOP moves forward with. On Twitter, Senator Kamala Harris of California wrote, “We beat it back once and we’ll do it again.”