Politics|Civics Lesson Unfolds at Capitol as Health Care Bill Incinerates
Civics Lesson Unfolds at Capitol as Health Care Bill Incinerates
At left, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, leaving the House chambers at the Capitol on Friday.CreditCreditGabriella Demczuk for The New York Times
By Matt Flegenheimer
WASHINGTON — President Trump had already given his blessing: Pull the bill. Speaker Paul D. Ryan, bound for the basement of the Capitol, was preparing to deliver the news to his conference.
And inside the House gallery on Friday, still teeming with lawmakers debating legislation that would never get a vote, Gary and Tammy Comes, visitors from Vero Beach, Fla., were straining to puzzle out the shouting just after 3:30 p.m.
"Vote! Vote! Vote!" came the lawmakers' chants, echoing as the body suddenly adjourned, setting in motion a whirring of members, journalists and assorted guests wandering through the Capitol, conscripted to spend the next several minutes — days? election cycles? — making sense of what had happened.
"He's like the coach," Mr. Comes, a 51-year-old Trump voter, said of his president as he left, lamenting the finale of a two-day education in legislative incineration. "Why do you want the coach to lose?"
Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, said, "We are going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future," after Republicans decided to pull the bill repealing Obamacare in a blow to President Trump.CreditCreditGabriella Demczuk for The New York Times
They were not alone in this hour of congressional processing, shuffling toward the exits with more questions than insights.
Republican members fumed loudest, racing into elevators after their conference meeting. "Don't bother to go," Representative Darrell Issa of California told a late-arriving colleague. It was over, he said, turning a thumb down.
Staff members digested the moment in varying degrees of distress. "Health care is hard," one young woman said quietly to a peer.
Building employees gossiped. "Ryan did an interview downstairs," one man told a police officer on his way out, referring to Mr. Ryan's session with reporters after 4 p.m. "Said Obamacare's the law of the land."
Others drifted through the halls with little sense of the surrounding tumult. Workers pushed carts into closets, eager to complete their week. Music blared from the headphones of high school visitors waiting by a bathroom.
Then there were the Comeses. They had not planned to tour the Capitol during their vacation here. But sensing something momentous afoot, they first wandered into the gallery on Thursday.
"They adjourned trying to debate what time to start this morning," said Ms. Comes, 47, marveling at the inanity.
"They cited some kind of rule," her husband added, shrugging beneath a National Hot Rod Association hoodie.
President Trump spoke from the Oval Office after Republicans pulled the House bill that was intended to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.CreditCreditAl Drago/The New York Times
The two are not Trump die-hards, they suggested, describing the 2016 election as a battle of relative evils.
But they expressed satisfaction with Mr. Trump's efforts so far.
"He's doing good," Ms. Comes said. "I think more people need to support him."
"It's a complicated issue," Mr. Comes noted, a partial echo of Mr. Trump's recent musing that "nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."
Still, the couple, returning soon to their Florida log cabin — "our neighbors call us Lincolns," Mr. Comes said — said their attendance on Friday had been instructive.
"It's cool to be a part of history, even if it didn't happen," he said.
Moments later, a guard walked over. The space was closing to the public.
The House was no longer open for business, he said. Or whatever that was.
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A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Civics Lesson on Display: Health Care Is Still Hard. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe
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