Congress is ramping up efforts to kill off Obamacare. Earlier today, the House passed the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013 – convincingly. The purpose of the bill, H.R. 2009, as introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), is simple: to prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from enforcing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
The bill is not a repeal of the Health Care Act but rather an attempt to get around it: the House has tried more than forty times to push a repeal through and has not yet been successful.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Leader (R-VA) had previously indicated that the bill would be considered today as part of #StopGovtAbuse Week (the hashtag is for twitter), an initiative by House Republicans to “restrain runaway government and re-empower citizens.” The speed of the vote was surprising but the result was not: the final tally for H.R. 2009 was sharply divided along party lines. All 185 no votes came from Democrats while 228 of the yes votes came from Republicans. Four Democrats crossed the aisle to vote yes: Rep. John Barrow (D-GA); Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT); Rep. Michael McIntyre (D-NC); and Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN).
President Obama has threatened to veto the bill but chances are, that won’t be necessary. The Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate and are not likely to approve any variation on the bill, although two versions have been introduced in the Senate over the past few months.
