After five years of failed attempts, US Senate Republicans on Thursday passed a symbolic partisan bill to gut President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform law, but the effort has already been condemned to death by Obama’s plans to veto it.
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The Senate approved the legislation in a near party-line 52-47 vote Thursday, leaving it likely that the GOP-run House will ship the measure to the White House in days.
Democrats in the Senate have blocked some 61 previous Republican attempts aimed at rolling back the landmark 2010 legislation created to provide health care for millions of uninsured Americans.
“Everybody knows (repeal) is a gesture in futility”, said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., before the vote.
Right now, the Senate session is undergoing a “vote-a-rama”, which began about two hours ago.
Three moderates, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), balked at it for including language defunding Planned Parenthood. After that, President Obama has guaranteed he will veto it. It zeros out the penalties on individuals who do not buy insurance and employers who do not offer health insurance.
President Obama has promised to veto the bill, and Republicans lack a supermajority required to override his veto.
The legislation also includes a provision to strip taxpayer funding from Planned Parenthood, a women’s health care and abortion provider.
Sens. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Marco Rubio, who initial didn’t support the measure since it didn’t fully repeal the law, were swayed into supporting the measure.
Democrats took advantage of the special rules of debate to push for votes on gun-related measures Republicans probably would not have allowed.
Republicans spent weeks hammering out the strategy targeting Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act.
The Obamacare repeal vote was so important to Senate Republicans because they are laying the groundwork for action if their nominee wins the White House in 2016.
A similar version of the bill was passed by the House on October 23, but they still have to vote because the Senate restructured the bill so that it can align with budgetary regulation. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was absent. And it would end taxes the law imposed to cover its costs, including levies on higher-income people, expensive insurance policies, medical devices and indoor tanning salons.
His vote to defund Planned Parenthood cost him the support of former Lt. Gov. Kathy Davis, who resigned as his campaign treasurer immediately afterward. They also believe it is important to fund abortion services.
The vote comes after anti-abortion activists released videos earlier this year allegedly showing organization officials discussing the sale of fetal tissue, which sent GOP officials and conservatives into an uproar. “I’ll take that to the polls and we’ll talk about it until the cows come home”.
Republicans argued that voters were on their side.
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By steering these two hot-button issues into the reconciliation bill, Republican leaders also steered them away from a separate must-pass government funding bill Congress is dealing with now known as the omnibus.
