We urge Congress to override the veto.
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The Senate passed the measure past year under special rules that protected it from a Democratic filibuster, and the House passed it this week.
A story in the Wall Street Journal Friday says “Every GOP presidential candidate’s health-policy platform begins with repealing the law, but for most, that’s also where it ends, at least for now”.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., predicted it will be “a matter of time” before the law is finally overturned.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday vetoed legislation passed by the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress that would have dismantled his signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act.
In a very unsurprising development with an even less suspenseful potential next step, a bill that would partially repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has landed on President Obama’s desk.
Still, Ryan has said he is determined to make 2016 “a year of ideas”, and he wants to use the House to show voters how a fully Republican government might function. “So, next year, if we’re sending this bill to a Republican president, it will get signed into law”.
The 17.6 million includes people who bought coverage on the online exchange, people covered by the Medicaid expansion carried out by about half the states including Pennsylvania, and adults up to age 26 who can now stay on their parent’s plan.
“It’s no surprise that someone named Obama vetoed a bill repealing Obamacare”, Ryan said in a statement.
While retaining parts of the Affordable Care Act, the legislation would have eliminated penalties for not complying with its requirement that individuals and large employers buy insurance for themselves and their workers.
Obama said reliable health care coverage would no longer be a right for everyone under the bill, but would become “a privilege for a few”.
“Rather than re-fighting old political battles by once again voting to repeal basic protections that provide security for the middle class, members of Congress should be working together to grow the economy, strengthen middle-class families, and create new jobs”, Obama wrote. “House Democrats will sustain the president’s veto and defeat Republicans’ latest attack on women’s health”.
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The bill also included language that would terminate the roughly $450 million yearly in federal dollars that go to Planned Parenthood, about a third of the organization’s budget.
