The U.S. House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act on Thursday night, its 37th vote to defund or dismantle the law, or portions of it, since Republicans took control of the House in 2011.
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann sponsored the legislation this time around, the first time one of her ACA (“Obamacare”) repeal bills has seen floor action, though she has co-sponsored several others. Her argument against the law had a new angle to it this week: In the wake of the Internal Revenue Service’s admission that it had targeted conservative political groups’ tax-exempt status applications, the American people shouldn’t give the agency more power, she said (the IRS issues health care subsidies and imposes penalties under the law).
“Could there potentially be political implications regarding health care — access to health care, denial of health care — will that happen based upon a person’s political beliefs or their religiously-held beliefs?” she said at a press conference Thursday morning. “These questions would have been considered out of bounds a week ago, but today these questions are considered more than reasonable and more than fair for the American people.”
Bachmann will begin airing a TV ad campaign on the repeal vote on Thursday night.
The bill passed on a mostly party-line 229-195 vote (two Democrats voted yes), though the Democratically-controlled Senate will not take it up, and the White House has said President Obama would veto it.