While the Washington Post wanted to take swipes at the House for voting some 32 times to repeal all or part of Obamacare, with today making it 33, they fail to mention just how many times liberals have made attempts to pass it. Today the House voted 244-185 to repeal all of the ACA.
The Hill reports,
The House voted again Wednesday to repeal the 2010 healthcare reform law, giving Republicans some revenge against the late June Supreme Court ruling that found the law to be constitutional.
Members approved the bill in a 244-185 vote, after five hours of debate that stretched over two days.
As expected, just a handful of Democrats supported the GOP repeal bill. Five Democrats, Reps. Dan Boren (Okla.), Larry Kissell (N.C.), Jim Matheson (Utah), Mike McIntyre (N.C.) and Mike Ross (Ark.), sided with Republicans in the final vote. Of this group, all but Matheson voted with the GOP in a procedural vote on the bill Tuesday.
Republicans insisted on passing the Repeal of Obamacare Act, H.R. 6079, in reaction to the Supreme Court ruling, even though Democrats pointed out that the bill would be ignored by the Democratic Senate. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) cast the bill as a way to give the Senate another chance to heed the will of Americans who oppose the legislation and see it as something that has led to increased healthcare costs and hindered job creation.
“For those who still support repealing this harmful healthcare law, we’re giving our colleagues in the Senate another chance to heed the will of the American people,” Boehner said. “And for those who did not support repeal the last time, it’s a chance for our colleagues to reconsider.”
Eric Cantor said, “I introduced this legislation on behalf of my colleagues so that we may all be on record following the Supreme Court’s decision, in order to show that the House rejects ObamaCare, and that we are committed to taking this flawed law off the books.”
This follows just weeks after the Supreme Court ruled the Obamacare mandate is constitutional as a tax.
Despite the House vote, Katie Hicks points out,
The House’s vote now goes to die in the Senate, where Harry Reid won’t pick up the measure in the upper chamber. Instead, this was a largely symbolic measure, hammering home the Republicans’ determination to get rid of it. Furthermore, it forces the Democrats to defend their support of a law that the public decidedly opposes: in the latest Rasmussen poll, 53% of voters want the Affordable Care Act repealed in full. Now that the law has been labeled a tax hike, the left will ostensibly have a harder time touting its merits; we’ll see if this vote — and its support from a few Democrats — gets any attention from Obama himself.
Just remember: five more Democrats voted to repeal the law than Republicans voted to pass the bill in the first place. Obama wants bipartisanship? There he has it.
