For the stock market, the drawn out effort to pass the health-care bill may not matter after all.

Regardless of whether Republicans can push the bill through, pro-growth and economic policies appear to be next on the agenda. If so, markets win either way, say analysts such as Evercore ISI’s Terry Haines.

“They are not willing to hold economic growth/tax reform hostage to ACA reform any longer: we think this is a broad market-positive signal that bolsters our case for 2017 tax reform,” Haines wrote in a note to clients Friday. “Whether today’s ACA vote is up or down, tax reform will start to take center stage this spring.”

U.S. stocks were thrown for a loop Thursday, oscillating between gains and losses as health-care headlines dominated the trading session. The S&P 500 Index finished 0.1 percent lower on news that the vote would be delayed until the next day. Yet stocks opened higher on Friday, with the gauge advancing 0.4 percent at 11:14 a.m. in New York.

For some, the push by House Speaker Paul Ryan on the embattled health care bill is just noise. The expectation is they will soon pivot to tax reform. Getting Friday’s vote out of the way, win or lose, would allow the Trump administration to move on to policy largely viewed as positive by the markets.

A year’s worth of campaigning on taxes and economic growth leaves little doubt about Republicans’ enthusiasm for deregulation and tax reform. Part of the issue, however, comes down to timing and whether the difficultly passing health care reform diminishes the administration’s prospects for pushing through future legislation.

‘Doesn’t Make Sense’

For UBS Group AG strategist Julian Emanuel, the idea that health bill’s failure spells doom for the rest of the Trump agenda “absolutely doesn’t make sense.” Though it could take until the beginning of next year, the legislative support for U.S. stocks isn’t disappearing, he said.

“Yes, today is important, but it’s not the be all and end all,” Emanuel said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “Even if this bill doesn’t pass, there’s still impetus for less regulation rather than more. Support of financials and tax reform is not a dead idea.”

But not everyone is as sanguine.

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