Vote to repeal health law marks testy start to ’16
WASHINGTON — The House is poised to send a bill to President Barack Obama’s desk repealing his signature health care law, a sharply partisan start to a presidential election year in which legislating may take a back seat to politics on Capitol Hill.
The legislation will be the first order of business when the House reconvenes later this week. After dozens of repeal votes in the House and Senate, it will mark the first time a bill repealing the health law makes it all the way to the White House.
Obama will veto the measure, which also would cut money for Planned Parenthood and already has passed the Senate under special rules protecting it from Democratic obstruction. But that’s the point for Republicans, who intend to schedule a veto override vote around Jan. 22, when anti-abortion activists hold an annual march in Washington.
Republicans said Monday the vote will fulfill promises to their constituents while highlighting the clear choice facing voters in the November presidential election.
“Obamacare is a failure and taxpayer funding of abortion providers is wrong. With this bill, we will force President Obama to show the American people where he stands,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. “Congress is making its choice clear.”
Democrats rejected the approach, in a clash that could set the tone for a partisan year.
“They have no plan. Republicans just want to undo what Democrats have fought for decades,” Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said at a town hall meeting in Davenport, Iowa. She said if a Republican succeeds Obama in the White House, the health law “will be repealed and then you will have to start all over again.”
In the Senate, which reconvenes Jan. 11, a week later than the House, early action will include a vote on a proposal by Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who is running for president, for an “audit” of the Federal Reserve. Democrats are likely to block it. But, like the health repeal bill in the House, the vote will answer conservative demands in an election year.
Also expected early in the Senate’s year is legislation dealing with Syrian refugees, following House passage of a bill clamping down on the refugee program. Conservatives were angry when 2015 ended without the bill advancing.
The House Benghazi committee will continue its investigation of the attacks that killed four Americans in Libya in 2012, with a closed- door interview of former CIA Director David Petraeus on Wednesday and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Friday.