A,B,C legislation works.
Everyone always screams about this and that....grab the majority vote measures and go with it. You can go back and do a little more.....
What you can't do is dump the entire mess in one fell scoop.
True, but only in an atmosphere of trust.
Paul Ryan has historically been disloyal to Donald Trump, and shown signs that he wants his Presidency to fail> Therefore, he cannot be trusted.
For that reason, if "phase 1" was passed, Speaker Ryan would have total power over the President with respect to any future phases that must go through Congress (in this case, that would have been "phase 3").
I think it would have been insanity for President Trump to give a GOPe globalist such as Ryan that kind of control over the President's success on healthcare.
It can be reasonably argued that Speaker Ryan wants President Trump to fail, and what better way than to pass "Obamacare lite", a bill that woiuld not have reduced the premiums of a single American insurance holder, and then hang the failed legislation around the President's neck as "Trumpcare", thus sabotaging him and ensuring a one term Presidency.
I think this could be a primary reason why the President went ahead and issued his ultimatum, signalling his willingness to walk away from this deal.
It has already been widely discussed that this bill was written behind closed doors by the insurance industry, without any attempt to gain consensus from the voting blocs which were supposed to support it, and then it was rolled out with a "take it or leave it, this is the only chance" attitude.
Under such circumstances, I think that President Trump dodged a bullet. Hopefully, some true statesmen will eventually bring up a real Obamacare "repeal and replace" bill—one which will help Americans get back towards a healthcare system that puts the patient first—and then offer a bona fide solution which addresses the many awful conditions which Obamacare has created, as well as the ones which existed prior to Obamacare, and for which purposes it was supposedly passed in the first place.
So in theory, your "A,B,C legislation works" adage is correct, but I strongly believe that in practice this is not the case, given the reality which currently applies in the Establishment-dominated Uniparty federal legislature...
What you can't do is dump the entire mess in one fell scoop.
As soon as we touch it, it becomes "Trump Care" and we own it. The Democrats wash their hands of it and when it falls apart (as it will) it becomes their 2018 campaign rallying cry.
Plus, the deal was always "repeal and replace" Obamacare, not "fix" Obamacare.