The U.S. Senate voted Thursday in favor of repealing central elements of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s primary legislative achievement. This may be the first time Congressional Republicans will succeed in sending a repeal to Obama’s desk, despite the President’s promise to veto.
Senators voted 52-47 to pass a measure that would dismantle the ACA, commonly known as Obamacare. The bill will now move into the House where similar legislation was circulating. The two bills will need to be streamlined into one before the representatives will have a chance to vote.
However, the effort by Congress is a moot point. President Obama has continually said that he will veto any such bill, and Congressional Democrats have enough votes to block a potential veto override by Congress.
“Everybody knows it’s just a gesture of futility,” Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, said Thursday on the Senate floor. “We’re wasting our time here today. Everybody knows the result.”
If Obamacare is repealed, it would essentially dismantle the individual mandate that requires everyone in the U.S. to carry health insurance. There are slight differences between the Senate and House bills in how they would approach it. The Senate would simply remove financial penalties for not having insurance, while the House would ditch the mandate all together.
Many analysts have warned of a “death spiral” associated with removing the requirement. The concern is that if insurance isn’t required, then those people with medical issues will primarily seek coverage, raising overall medical bills, which in turn would raise premiums. That would then push more people out of plans, and the cycle would continue, potentially raising insurance premiums to such a level that few could afford them.
The Senate and House bills would also prohibit federal funding for reproductive and women’s health group Planned Parenthood. The organization came under scrutiny recently when altered, undercover videos allegedly revealed leaders selling fetuses to researchers, which Planned Parenthood said is not true—it says tissues are only donated for scientific research in line with current laws and ethics.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in June that repealing Obamacare could add as much as $353 billion to the U.S. budget deficit through 2025 and increase the number of uninsured by 19 million next year. Some savings would be generated by ending insurance subsidies, but those would be swamped by the costs associated with the law’s cuts to Medicare and scrapping its tax increases, the CBO said.
The law’s tenets, including the individual mandate, have been upheld in two Supreme Court decisions. To date, House Republicans have failed to repeal or delay the law despite voting more than 50 times. All Senate Democrats voted against the bill Thursday. Two Republican Senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois, also voted against it.