WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are a step away from acquiring what they consider a political cudgel for next year’s elections: A veto by President Barack Obama of legislation devastating his health care law and Planned Parenthood.
The Senate approved the legislation in a near party-line 52-47 vote Thursday, leaving it likely that the GOP-run House will ship the measure to the White House in days.
The bill would be the first to reach Obama’s desk aimed at demolishing his 2010 health care overhaul, one of his proudest domestic achievements, and halting federal payments to Planned Parenthood. Congress has voted dozens of times to repeal or weaken the health law and repeatedly against Planned Parenthood’s funding, but until now Democrats thwarted Republicans from shipping the legislation to the White House.
Republicans said a veto, which the White House has promised, will underscore that a GOP triumph in next year’s presidential and congressional elections would mean repeal of a statute they blame for surging medical costs and insurers abandoning some markets. They lack the two-thirds House and Senate majorities needed to override vetoes, assuring that the bill’s chief purpose will be for campaign talking points.
“President Obama will have a choice,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “He can defend a status quo that’s failed the middle class by vetoing the bill, or he can work toward a new beginning and better care by signing it.”
Republicans blame the bill for surging health care costs and insurers abandoning some markets. Government officials said this week that health care spending grew at 5.3 percent in 2014, the steepest climb since Obama took office.
Democrats noted that under the law, millions of people have become insured and said their coverage has improved, with policies now required to insure a wide range of medical services.
“This will undo the progress we have made,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “And it’s not what our families and communities want.”
With just a 54-46 edge, Republicans had previously failed to push such legislation through the Senate. This time, they used a special budget procedure that prevents filibusters — delays that take 60 votes to halt — and let them prevail with a simple majority.
Party leaders initially encountered objections from some moderate Republicans leery of cutting Planned Parenthood’s funds and from presidential contenders, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, complaining it wasn’t strong enough.
In the end, moderate GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois voted no, the only lawmakers to cross party lines. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., did not vote.
The Senate bill would all but erase the health care overhaul by dismantling its key pillars, including requirements that most people obtain coverage and larger employers offer it to workers.
Also eliminated would be its expansion of Medicaid coverage to additional lower-income people and the government’s subsidies for many who buy policies on newly created insurance marketplaces. And it would end taxes the law imposed to cover its costs, including levies on higher-income people, expensive insurance policies, medical devices and indoor tanning salons.
The bill would also terminate the roughly $450 million yearly in federal dollars that go to Planned Parenthood, about a third of its budget. Federal funds can be used for abortions only in rare cases.
A perennial target of conservatives, the group has been under intensified GOP pressure this year for its role in providing fetal tissue to scientists. Citing secretly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing such sales, some abortion foes have accused the organization of illegally providing the tissue for profit. The group says the videos were deceptively doctored and say it has done nothing illegal.
Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Dawn Laguens said the Senate had given the group’s millions of clients “the cold shoulder of indifference.”
Senators voted on over a dozen amendments — all symbolic, since the measure was destined to never become law.
They rejected two amendments that would have restored Planned Parenthood’s money. They blocked proposals for tightening gun curbs, a response to Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, last week’s fatal attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado and last month’s assault on Paris.
They also voted 90-10 to permanently repeal taxes on high-priced “Cadillac” insurance policies, a strong signal of growing congressional momentum for erasing that levy.
GOP lawmakers said the overall bill could serve as a bridge to a future Republican health care law. Though Obama’s overhaul was enacted five years ago, Republicans have yet to produce a detailed proposal to replace it.
“It’s either repeal or nothing,” Sen. Jon Tester of Montana,, who heads the Senate Democratic campaign committee, said of the GOP’s failure to propose an alternative. “I‘ll take that to the polls and we’ll talk about it until the cows come home.”
Republicans argued voters were on their side.
“We’ve reached a pretty scary time in our nation’s history where we have Americans writing and calling their elected representatives saying they need relief from their own government,” said No. 2 Senate Leader John Cornyn of Texas. “We have a mandate, I believe, to repeal this terrible law.”
