Democrats should take credit for killing AHCA: Sanders

Independent senator Bernie Sanders has blamed the Democrats for killing the American Health Care Act (AHCA) after it was withdrawn from the House without a vote.

"Democrats should take credit for killing a really, really bad piece of legislation," Sanders told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Friday night.

"Poll after poll showed that's exactly what the American people did not want," he added.

United States President Donald Trump had asked the House of Republicans to pull the bill, a day after he threatened to walk away from health care reform if he didn't get a vote.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, eventually, pulled the Obamacare repeal bill from the floor.

Earlier, Ryan told Trump that he did not have the votes to pass the measure.

There is, however, no Plan B for the Republicans after the failure of the health care bill.

"We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future," Ryan said after the pull-out.

"I think we were doing the architects of Obamacare a favour" with this bill," Ryan said, adding the Affordable Care Act is on the brink of failure.

The development comes as a major embarrassment for Trump, who had gambled big time by presenting holdout House conservatives with a take-it-or-leave it ultimatum on Thursday night and had ultimately put his own credibility on the line.

In his first statement after pulling the health care bill, Trump leaned hard on the Democrats and said that Obamacare was going to "explode."

"The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer because they own Obamacare," Trump said.

"They weren't going to give us a single vote," he added.

Trump, however, expressed hope that the future would see a "truly health care bill.