House repeals healthcare law

By Russell Berman - 01/19/11 05:54 PM ET

 

The House voted on Wednesday to repeal the sweeping healthcare law enacted last year, as Republicans made good on a central campaign pledge and laid down the first major policy marker of their new majority.

The party-line vote was 245-189, as three Democrats joined all 242 Republicans in supporting repeal.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the healthcare law on the books would increase spending, raise taxes and eliminate jobs.

 

“Repeal means paving the way for better solutions that will lower the costs without destroying jobs or bankrupting our government,” Boehner said in remarks on the floor before the vote.

“Let’s stop payment on this check before it can destroy more jobs or put us into a deeper hole.”

The vote to roll back the president’s signature domestic achievement of the 111th Congress just 10 months after its passage underscores the deep divisions that still surround the new law. But whether House action will signal the beginning of a rapid dismantling of the healthcare overhaul or serve merely as a historical footnote remains to be seen.

Democratic leaders in the Senate have vowed to shelve the repeal bill, and President Obama has said he would veto repeal if it ever reached his desk.

With those threats in mind, GOP leaders dared the Senate to take up the measure, and they promised to fight the healthcare law in other ways if repeal failed.

“The American people deserve to see a vote in the Senate, and it ought not to be a place where legislation goes into a dead end,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said.