Senate Blocks Attempt to Keep Funding Planned Parenthood

House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, asked if the chamber would simply take up the Senate bill, said: “Why wouldn’t we?”

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.

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.

The effort started way back in January 2011, with a bill titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”, to repeal all of the ACA. If the House as expected sends the Senate bill to Obama, the measure will become the first of its kind to reach the White House and be vetoed, an act Republicans say will highlight GOP priorities for voters.

“Today, Senate Republicans fulfilled our promise to end the negative consequences of Obamacare by repealing the president’s unaffordable health law”, said Utah Sen.

“When there are legitimate health care providers that actually help women and their babies, it’s a travesty to give one dime to Planned Parenthood”, he added.

With GOP leaders insisting they had the votes they’d need, Sen. He and rival GOP presidential candidates Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, who threatened to oppose the measure if it wasn’t strong enough. The bill also would remove policies that are expected to help slow the growth in health care costs and that have improved the quality of care patients receive. The Senate and the House must soon approve identical bills before they can get to the president’s desk. Independent senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, did not vote.

Investigations in at least eight states have found no evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood, as RH Reality Check has reported.

“I’m extremely disappointed that Kelly Ayotte has consistently put corporate special interests and her party’s leadership ahead of New Hampshire, and that she has vowed to vote yet again to repeal New Hampshire’s bipartisan Medicaid expansion plan and defund Planned Parenthood”, Hassan said in a statement Thursday. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “And it’s not what our families and communities want”. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) maintained that its “value is to let him know – the president – and others that there’s a big division in this country, and a lot of us don’t like it, and the American people don’t like it”, according to NPR.

The Senate bill would all but erase the health care overhaul by dismantling some of its key pillars, such as requirements that most people obtain coverage and larger employers offer it to workers.

It also would eliminate federal subsidies to about 6 million low- and moderate-income Americans buying their own insurance.