Senate: Obamacare Repeal Bill Passed, Defunds Planned Parenthood

After the house’s expected approval of the bill, the legislation will be the first to reach President Obama’s desk demolishing his health care law and blocking Planned Parenthood’s federal money.

Two moderate Republican senators, Mark Kirk of IL and Susan Collins of ME, joined 44 Democrats and one independent in opposing the measure. It also repeals the Cadillac and medical device taxes and Medicaid expansion and tax credits and removes the federal government’s authority to run the exchanges.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said the GOP bill was “not some attack on women’s health”.

The bill will now be moved on to the House of Representatives, which passed another version of the legislation in October.

“I’m especially proud to support what this bill does to protect innocent unborn children, and increase funding for women’s health care by defunding Planned Parenthood and redirecting the taxpayer dollars it now receives toward more worthy causes”.

Pro-life supporters recite the rosary with Bishop David L. Ricken of Green Bay, Wis., during a prayer service in late August outside of a Planned Parenthood facility in Grand Chute, WI. Furthermore, a bill passed by both houses now could streamline future attempts to successfully repeal the law in the event they won control of the Oval Office and Congress in 2016. “And the millions of families who have gotten high-quality, affordable health care, many for the first time, should not have to worry that an unconscionable act of Congress will take their insurance away and send their health care costs rocketing upwards”.

Planned Parenthood has been under fire since July when a conservative anti-abortion group released videos that allegedly show medical workers affiliated with the pro-choice org discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue.

Cutting off federal funds to Planned Parenthood for a year was written into H.R. 3762, which the Senate passed Thursday.

Planned Parenthood has said it has done nothing wrong and has said the videos were deceptively edited.

The bill uses a process known as reconciliation that prevents Senate Democrats from blocking it by demanding a 60-vote threshold to advance the measure.

See how your senator voted on the reconciliation package below.

“It seems implausible that less than a week after a tragic shooting at the Planned Parenthood health center in Colorado Springs some in Washington chose politics over compassion”, said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “This bill repeals as much of that failed law as we can under arcane Senate rules and the narrow guidelines of the budget”. Obama’s law was enacted five years ago; Republicans haven’t produced a detailed proposal to replace it.

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The Republican-controlled Senate passed the bill in a 52-47 vote.