ABC reports that “Senate Republicans have overwhelmed Democrats in a vote to end Planned Parenthood’s federal funding”, but this vote is a victory for all Americans.
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Republicans lack the two-thirds House and Senate majorities needed to override a veto.
The Senate narrowly passed a bill Thursday that would repeal key pieces of the Affordable Care Act and strip federal funding of Planned Parenthood for one year.
“People will die if they don’t get health insurance”, Barrett said. If the House, as expected, sends this bill to Obama, it would be the first to reach the White House and get vetoed.
So, some might ask, what is the value of this exercise?
Republicans “can go home and say, ‘This is what we did, and the reason for the failure isn’t that we didn’t try, it’s that the president has a veto”. Richard Shelby of Alabama. But he’ll also be able to tell financial elites and GOP donors he’s avoided any more government shutdown nonsense by giving the ideologues a harmless if serious-sounding outlet for their craziness – in other words, running them right off a cliff. They provide fodder for campaign ads later.
In July, Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, introduced legislation to cut off all federal funds to Planned Parenthood. “When the president picks up his pen, he’ll have a real choice to make”.
Democrats countered that Republicans were wasting time with more political show votes.
Last week, Planned Parenthood released a statement following the shooting at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which left three people dead.
In recent months, many Senate Democrats have grown increasingly agitated at their inability to respond to the growing number of mass shootings across the country and pass tougher gun control legislation and measures to help mentally unstable people before they carry out a tragedy.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said the GOP bill was “not some attack on women’s health”.
To mollify those conservatives, McConnell eventually added an amendment package that included measures to phase out Medicaid expansion, delay subsidies for those who purchase insurance on the health care exchanges for two years and shift some funding toward Medicare. The provision was included in the House bill but had to be sunset to pass parliamentary muster in the upper chamber. Susan Collins of Maine.
“There were over four million visits to Planned Parenthood clinics a year ago, and over 90 percent of this was basic women’s health care and not abortions”, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) said on the House floor during the September vote. Three Republicans tried to strike the Planned Parenthood provision, but failed when 52 Republicans opposed them. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa.) “It’s putting a bill on the president’s desk repealing Obamacare or changing Obamacare and this is the only way it can be done”.
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Most of the vulnerable Republican senators didn’t shy from the vote – and even promoted their support.
