Sen. Pat Toomey On Lagging Health Care Reform: 'I Didn’t Expect Donald Trump To Win'

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) offered an explanation on Wednesday night as to why congressional Republicans haven’t been able to pass health care reform since President Donald Trump took office in January, despite promising for years that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act was a top priority.

“I didn’t expect Donald Trump to win,” Toomey said during a town hall hosted by the ABC27 News station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “I think most of my colleagues didn’t. So we didn’t expect to be in this situation.”

Toomey was one of the 13 Republican senators working to draft a health care bill after House Republicans passed their version of an Obamacare replacement in May.

Senate Republicans unveiled their health care bill last month, which would significantly gut Medicaid and result in 22 million more uninsured people over the next 10 years. Toomey has defended the bill against critics and cast doubt on the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of the legislation.

His position sparked protests this week, as dozens of people gathered outside Toomey’s town hall event at ABC27 News studios to demand he withdraw his support of the bill.