politics

Three guesses as to what this room of male politicians were discussing.

For eight years, Republicans have been talking about scrapping Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform ‘Obamacare’ but, um, none of them bothered to come up with a viable alternative. Whoops.

Fast-forward, and now they’re in the White House but still can’t agree on the terms of the new bill. Governing is tough, who knew?

On Thursday, a bunch of them gathered behind closed doors to discuss whether they ought to repeal the law which says 10 “essential health benefits” have to be covered in plans sold by insurers—these include pregnancy, maternity and newborn care.

Here they are mulling it over:

Vice President Mike Pence shared the above photo of the session, which was attended by President Donald Trump and Republican members of the House Freedom Caucus.

As a couple of people noted, something was missing from the picture…but WHAT?!!

Oh, right. Women. Christ, there wasn’t even a woman.

Regardless, their negotiations didn’t get far. By late on Thursday it was clear not enough of the 40 House Republicans were willing to accept their leader’s bill.

The New York Times pegged it at a 32 to 15 split, against—22 ‘yes’ votes are needed to pass it.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer later told reporters, the “essential health benefits” had been a sticking point for many of them.

In a do-or-die attempt to push through a deal, Trump basically threatened to leave Obamacare in place and move on if a vote wasn’t held on Friday, which might be the best result of all.

LISTEN: The Mamamia Outloud team talk nasty women…