Health Care Repeal | featured news

The Republican Party's platform calls for a ban on all abortions, reshaping Medicare and deep cuts to Medicaid if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are elected in November. The New York Times: Platform's Sharp Turn To Right Has Conservatives Cheering
The new platform — with its call to reshape Medicare to give fixed amounts of money to future beneficiaries so they can buy their own coverage, its tough stance on illegal immigration and its many calls to shrink the size and scope of government — shows just how far rightward the party has shifted in both tone and substance in the decades since it adopted the 1980 platform, which was considered a triumph for conservatives at the time (Cooper, 8/28).

House Republicans have now voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act 33 times. Every time they take this vote, it’s time they could be spending on other issues... But though they’ve found the time to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act on 33 separate occasions, they have voted to replace the Affordable Care Act exactly … never.

The White House casts today's House Republican vote to repeal the health care law as a waste of time while Americans are hurting economically. "We do not need to refight the battles of two years ago, three years ago," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. "We need to help the American economy now." The GOP-run House is likely to support repeal of Obama's health law with a vote this afternoon. The repeal proposal would go nowhere in the Democratic-run Senate... Carney said that, by his count, this is the 33rd time that congressional Republicans have voted to repeal or defund health care. He says the GOP is engaged in "a quixotic effort to try and score political points.

Here they go again. Again. Again. Curious to know how many times the House has voted to strip away all or part of the health-care reform law? The magic number is 32 — and it will be 33 after today, as House Republicans plan to vote again to repeal the entire law... And even if today’s vote never gets signed into law by President Obama, Republicans vow to keep trying.

With the House scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to repeal the health care law, some Republicans worry that constantly rearguing the issue makes them seem out of touch.

"For us to have the numbers in the Senate and House and White House isn't going to be as easy as everybody thinks," Rooney said after the high court decision Friday. "It's great to be optimistic, but in an election a lot of things have to go your way. 2012 would have to be like 2010 and then some."

Romney repeated his vow to repeal the law if elected. But even if his fellow Republicans win both chambers of Congress in the November 6 elections, Democrats will likely still retain enough seats in the Senate to keep the law in place.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Thursday renewed his vow to try to repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare law after a divided Supreme Court key parts of it.

Congressional Republicans intend to seek quick repeal of any parts of the health care law that survive a widely anticipated Supreme Court ruling, but don't plan to push replacement measures until after the fall elections or perhaps 2013.