When a House Republican proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act died Friday after President Donald Trump failed to drum up enough votes for the measure, business and medical groups registered their reactions, reflecting how they had approached the bill.

The failure of the American Health Care Act was a blow to groups that had long complained about "Obamacare." Among them was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with CEO Tom Donohue calling the decision to pull the bill "a disappointing setback."

"Accomplishing meaningful reforms through the legislative process is challenging and messy," Donohue said. "It should be lost on nobody that critical components in Obamacare are failing and at risk of collapse. As political as this debate has become, the impact of a failing health care system on the American people is not a partisan problem."

Donohue urged Trump and Congress to continue working on health care, but Republican leaders have indicated they were going move to other issues, such as tax reform.

The National Retail Federation was also disappointed with the outcome. Vice President for Health Care Policy Neil Trautwein said the Republican bill wasn't perfect, but it was a step in the right direction.

"By holding out for a perfect proposal that might never make it to the White House, the House has squandered an opportunity to pass realistic legislation that could get through the Senate and be signed into law by President Trump," Trautwein said.

Most medical groups did not share NRF's enthusiasm for AHCA. A few days before the vote, Bill Doherty, top lobbyist for the American College of Physicians, tweeted he had "never seen a bill that will do more harm to health" in his nearly four decades of advocacy.

After the bill's failure, ACP joined with four other medical groups to urge Congress "to find a new way forward."

"We stood in opposition to the AHCA for the harm it would cause our patients by leading to less access to coverage, doing away with critical patient protections, dismantling the Medicaid program and resulting in higher costs of care," the groups said in a joint statement.

On the day of the vote, the American Medical Association asked members and the public to contact their representatives and urge them to vote "no" against the AHCA. The American Hospital Association held a news conference in Washington, D.C., a few days before the vote to warn that millions of people could lose insurance coverage under the legislation.

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