What's Different About Today's Obamacare Repeal Vote

[bigbadjohn45]

What's Different About Today's Obamacare Repeal Vote

@kelseyjharkness / February 03, 2015 /

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., walks up the House steps for votes. This week members will vote to repeal Obamacare. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)





Tuesday, for the fourth time, the U.S. House will vote to fully repeal Obamacare. What's different, though, is that with a GOP-controlled Senate, Republicans can attack President Obama's signature legislation on their own terms.

The showdown over the Affordable Care Act comes as conservatives want GOP leaders to fulfill a campaign promise to repeal the health-care law in the early days of the new Congress.



The way they want to do it hinges on a political tactic known as reconciliation. By using this budget maneuver, conservatives believe it's possible to avoid a Senate filibuster. They say it's their best chance to send a repeal bill to Obama, which he's promised to veto.

"Tuesday's vote is the first step in a multi-month effort that should culminate with the House and Senate using the budget process to put full repeal of Obamacare on the president's desk," said Dan Holler, communications director for Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation.

Obama has vowed to veto any legislation that undermines the Affordable Care Act. Conservatives view that short-term setback as a symbolic step that would work to their advantage in the long run if a Republican wins the presidency in 2016.

"The Republican-controlled Congress will send a signal to voters, states and insurers that Obamacare will be repealed in two short years," Holler said of the strategy.



President Obama signs the Affordable Care Act into law. (Photo: Getty Images)

What is reconciliation?

Reconciliation is a budget tool that, if successful, would severely limit the scope and functionality of the Affordable Care Act.

When a reconciliation bill goes before the Senate, it cannot be filibustered, and just 51 votes-a majority-are needed to advance and pass the legislation.

Democrats used the move in 2009 when Congress voted on the Affordable Care Act. Now, almost six years later, Republicans are debating whether to employ the same tactic to push back against the health care law.

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., is leading the effort to convince House leadership to embrace the budget tactic.



Rep. John Fleming, R-La. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

>>> Republican Congressman Urges House Leadership to Use Reconciliation to Repeal Obamacare

"Mr. Speaker, our constituents are hurting from the consequences of Obamacare, and we urge you to include reconciliation instructions that will repeal all reconcilable aspects of Obamacare in the fiscal year 2016 budget resolution," he said in a letter addressed to Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., signaled last October he'd be open to using reconciliation to repeal Obamacare with 51 votes. Republicans currently control 54 seats in the U.S. Senate.

Making good on their promise

Tuesday's vote will also provide the new members of Congress a chance to show their constituents that "repealing and replacing Obamacare" wasn't just a campaign slogan.

"We have 47 new members of Congress on the Republican side who have never had the chance to cast their vote to repeal Obamacare," Boehner told Fox News' Bret Baier in an interview last week.

The vote will also give the new Republican-controlled Senate an opportunity change direction and work with the House to formulate a new health-care alternative to Obamacare.

Already, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced legislation to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act. The bill, filed Monday, has 44 cosponsors.



Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

"In November, voters all across the country spoke loud and clear that Congress must do everything we can to repeal Obamacare," Cruz said in a press release, adding:

We must send this bill to the president's desk. If he vetoes it, the GOP Congress should pass bill after bill to stop Obamacare. Each will have broad support among the American people, and Democrats in both chambers will be hard-pressed not to support them. The president will be faced with a clear choice: either listen to the American people, who have never supported this law, or ignore them, and ignore the disastrous harms to millions of families, young people, and the most vulnerable among us.

Although Republicans are united on "repealing" Obamacare, they have not yet decided how to "replace" the health care law. This week's measure will include a provision that directs committees to develop an alternative.

 

[bigbadjohn45]

Flash/Mike,

I disagree with the notion held by some that the effort of the Republican-led House and Senate to repeal Obamacare is a waste of time. I think sending a bill to Obama's desk will send a clear message that the GOP is, indeed, making a real effort to abolish it. Furthermore, I also believe the GOP should pursue a subsequent piecemeal approach to defund various aspects of the law. I also favor using the reconciliation tactic to repeal the law, just as the Democrats used the same tactic to enable its passage.

 

[bigbadjohn45]

 

[bigbadjohn45]

GOP-led House votes to repeal ObamaCare



Published February 03, 2015

FoxNews.com







WASHINGTON - The House voted Tuesday to repeal the Affordable Care Act, getting Republicans on record in favor of overturning the law for the first time since the party took control of Congress.



The bill passed on a 239-186 vote.





President Obama already has threatened to veto the legislation -- and like past bills to repeal ObamaCare, it is unlikely to go far under the current administration, despite Republicans now controlling the Senate and having a bigger majority in the House.

But the vote serves as an opening shot in the 114th Congress' efforts to chip away at the law. Several lawmakers have introduced bills to change or undo parts of the Affordable Care Act, and some could garner bipartisan support.

"We need health care reform that makes the system more responsive to patients, families and doctors -- reforms that preserve and protect the doctor-patient relationship. Right now, ObamaCare is moving our health care system in the exact opposite direction where the American people are paying more and getting less," Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said in a statement after the vote. "In the House of Representatives, we are saying we need to get rid of this law that's not working and focus on solutions that will embrace the principles of affordability, accessibility, quality, innovation, choices, and responsiveness."

Prior to the vote, Obama questioned the logic behind it.

"So my understanding is the House scheduled yet another vote today to take health care away from folks around this table," Obama said during a meeting with 10 people who have written him letters about how the ACA has helped them.

He added, "I've asked this question before. Why is it that this would be at the top of their agenda? It was maybe plausible to be against the Affordable Care Act before it was implemented. But now it has been implemented and it is working."

The House has voted more than 50 times in the past two years to repeal all or parts of the law.

The legislation would go next to the Republican-controlled Senate.

While some say the vote is a symbolic gesture, the push to repeal ObamaCare comes as the Supreme Court weighs the King v. Burwell case, which challenges the legality of some subsidies offered through the president's signature health care law. If the Supreme Court upholds a lower court's verdict, it could severely undermine the law and fuel GOP efforts to at least change it.

Republicans, as their next major step, are planning to draft legislation offering an alternative to the ACA. The bill approved Tuesday also directs House committees to begin work on an alternative plan, in case the Supreme Court rules against the law.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

[Blueraider_Mike]

I think they should use every tool they have access to, even reconciliation.

The fact that Obama and the left used a simple majority vote (tool not designed to do what they used it for) to pass the most important legislation since the 1960s is proof of how crappy the law was and how poisoned the well is for the future.