House Passes Repeal to Health Reform

January 20, 2011

Portfolio.com

The House voted 245-189 Wednesday evening to repeal the health care reform law that was signed into law last year.

House Republicans said they would begin work Thursday on legislation to replace the bill with alternative, market-based reforms. Senate passage of the House’s repeal legislation is highly unlikely, however. Even if the Senate did follow the House’s lead, President Barack Obama would veto the bill.

The vote to repeal health care reform fulfilled a promise Republicans made during the 2010 congressional campaign. Republicans contend health care reform will hurt the economy by forcing businesses to provide health insurance that they can’t afford and will give the government too much control over medical care.

“Repeal means paving the way for better solutions that will lower the costs without destroying jobs or bankrupting our government," said House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.

Business groups that opposed health care reform praised the vote to repeal the bill.

“I can’t think of a better way to kick off the new Congress,” said Dan Danner, CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business.

“The health care law didn’t help the small business community with the cost of healthcare, which has always been our No. 1 concern,” he said. “If anything, the law does the opposite—increasing costs and burdens on the group that needs meaningful reform most.”

Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the repeal vote “sent an important message to the American people that Congress is listening to their call for health care reform that truly lowers cost and improves quality without irreparably damaging our economy and inhibiting job creation.”

The health care reform law was “fatally flawed,” he said, because it didn’t reduce health care costs.

“It imposes mandates and penalties on businesses that discourage job growth, increases taxes and burdens on small businesses, creates dangerous new entitlements while cutting Medicare, and creates new plan requirements that will increase costs,” Josten said.

“The virtual inability to ‘grandfather’ current plans is but one example of the problems created by the law that are causing angst among employers,” he said.

Democrats said repeal of health care reform would mean millions of Americans would lose protections provided by the bill.

It would “put insurance companies back in charge of the health of the American people,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

“Under the Republican plan, children with pre-existing conditions would again be denied coverage and families would again suffer devastating annual and lifetime caps,” said Democratic Representative Earl Blumenaur of Oregon. “Middle-class Americans would lose the tax breaks that help millions of families and small businesses pay for coverage, and seniors would see their prescription drug costs rise again when the donut hole is reinstated.”

Democrats unsuccessfully pushed a motion that would stipulate that repeal would not go into effect unless a majority of both House and Senate members drop their government-provided health coverage.

“Congress should live by the same rules that it imposes on everyone else,” said Representative Robert Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat.

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