House Republicans passed a bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care plan Wednesday, taking their first major step toward rolling back the massive overhaul that has dominated the American political landscape for almost two years.
The vote was 245 to 189, and unanimous GOP support gave the vote the same partisan feel of the March vote to pass the law, underscoring once again the hardened political lines of the health care debate. Only three Democrats backed the repeal, a smaller number than Republicans had once predicted.
The bill will head next to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised to block it. If it did receive a vote, the repeal bill would be unlikely to draw support from even a majority of senators. Even so, House Republican leaders have challenged Reid to give the bill a vote since Democrats, who control the chamber, have little to fear.
House members flooded the floor throughout the day, delivering short but occasionally impassioned speeches that echoed their party’s talking points.
Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) called the law “a trillion-dollar tragedy.”
Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.) described it as “job-killing” and “socialistic.”
Rep. Kevin Duncan (R-Texas) said “health care is too important to get it wrong, and Obamacare got it wrong.”
Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) agreed Wednesday afternoon that the health reform law creates jobs, but sparred on their merits.
Pallone said it’s a good thing that the new law creates jobs in the health-care sector. He also said he was glad to hear Stearns say that the law will create jobs, a point, he says, Republicans won’t concede.
But Stearns fired back, saying the measure creates the wrong kind of jobs.
“Perhaps the gentleman of New Jersey didn’t listen to me when I just spoke,” Stearns said. “It’s creating 150 new government agencies. And these are all government jobs. When we talk about job creation here, that’s government jobs.”
