House Votes To Repeal ‘Obamacare,’ Again
The House of Representatives has voted to repeal Obamacare — for the 37th time. The repeal vote was held on Thursday afternoon and signaled a possible growing trend of the GOP to voice their opinion on the law, called the Affordable Care Act, which passed in 2010.
The House held a successful vote to repeal the healthcare act by 229-195. However, the bill has little chance of passing in the Democratic-controlled House.
Rather, the decision to hold a vote repealing Obamacare was made by Republican leaders looking to appease freshman GOP lawmakers. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), explained:
“We’ve got 70 new members who have not had the opportunity to vote on the president’s health care law. Frankly, they’ve been asking for an opportunity to vote on it, and we’re going to give it to them.”
The House debated the Obamacare repeal bill before the vote on Thursday, revisiting many of the same polemical points each side has made since the bill was first debated in 2009 and 2010.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that repealing the Affordable Care Act could cause an increase in budget deficits of $109 billion in the next ten years. Should the law be rescinded, spending would be cut by $890 billion, while revenues would be cut by $1 trillion in the next 10 years.
Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, called the vote to repeal Obamacare “a Republican obsession.” He added that it is “an embarrassing spectacle that has consumed House Republicans for more than two years, to the detriment of our economy and millions of Americans looking for work.”
House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) countered, saying the law “puts the federal government precisely where it doesn’t belong.”
Thursday’s House vote to repeal Obamacare also sparked a Twitter feud between the two sides. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) started the hashtag #ObamaCareInThreeWords. The White House seized the opportunity to defend the healthcare reform, tweeting:
It’s. The. Law. #ObamaCareInThreeWords, twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…
— The White House (@whitehouse) May 16, 2013
Do you think the House’s bill to repeal Obamacare will work?
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