The House has voted to pass the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act (H.R. 3762), frequently referred to as the reconciliation bill.
The legislation would gut significant Obamacare mandates, as well as cut off Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid funding. The pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List is pleased with the bill's success:
“Today’s House vote cuts Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding – the most significant portion of the abortion business’s overall $528 million a year in taxpayer funding. Women have the most to gain from congressional action to reroute these tax dollars to community and rural health centers, which provide comprehensive health care services to women, but do not abort the lives of unborn children and harvest their body parts."
Yet, a few senators and conservative groups have come out against the bill because they want to see a full repeal of Obamacare. Reconciliation just doesn't go far enough, they say.
Heritage Action also rejected the bill, releasing a statement Friday morning following its passage claiming that, thanks to reconciliation, Obamacare is now here to stay:
“Today’s charade is the perfect summation of everything that is wrong with the Boehner-led House. Rather than uniting Republicans and the conservative movement by delivering on the party’s promise, the leadership’s use of reconciliation undermines the party’s long-standing position of full repeal. They did so by putting members in an unnecessarily tough position because lawmakers felt they could not be seen as voting against what some described as a pro-life bill. We expect the Senate to do better, and every member that voted in favor of this bill should explain to their constituents how full repeal of Obamacare will become a reality in 2017.”
H.R. 3762 is now heading for the Senate.
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