WASHINGTON – The Republican-controlled House of Representatives will once again take up a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act when it returns to the hill Tuesday.
The bill undoing the president’s prized overhaul will be the first order of business for the House, marking a sharply partisan start on Capitol Hill to a congressional year in which legislating may take a back seat to politics.
Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning, NY 23) said that in addition to repealing Obamacare, House republicans are expected to put forward their own alternative plan that he says would, among other things, reduce healthcare costs.
Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)
“Allowing insurance to be bought across state lines. That’s a well known proposal that’s out there and I think has common ground for us to use market forces to force the carriers to compete for the business,” Reed said. “When it comes to tort reform and getting defensive medicine out of the system. I think there’s a lot of agreement that could be reached there if we took on that issue. And going after waste, fraud and abuse. Those are the low hanging fruit areas of medicare and medicaid where we may be able to have some small victories that lead to bigger victories.”
Meanwhile, the measure to repeal Obamacare already has passed the Senate under special rules protecting it from Democratic obstruction.
Despite dozens of past votes to repeal the health law in full or in part, Republicans never before have succeeded in sending a full repeal bill to the White House.
They insist that doing so will fulfill promises to their constituents while highlighting the clear choice facing voters in the November presidential election.
Obama will veto the health law repeal bill, which also would cut money for Planned Parenthood.
Republicans will then schedule a veto override vote for Jan. 22, when anti-abortion activists hold their annual march in Washington to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in 1973 that legalized abortion.
From the moment it passed to the present, polling data shows a majority of the American people were and are opposed to Obamacare. This legislation was crammed down our throat, those who passed it often didn’t read it and certainly didn’t understand its consequences. Obamacare is a failure and it is stupid to continue a failed experiment. But, as long as Obama is president, he will never recognize that failure and will veto any effort to repeal his signature “accomplishment”. Fortunately, as we are about to enter the last year of his presidency (Obama must constitutionally go on Jan. 20, 2017), he becomes an increasingly irrelevant lame duck. The next president, if a Republican, will surely sign a repeal and probably void all of Obama’s over reaching executive orders.