Boehner: House will vote again to repeal O-Care

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the House will vote once again next year to repeal ObamaCare, along with a slew of other piecemeal attacks on the law. 

Boehner highlighted the issue at his first post-election press conference Thursday, saying that having President Obama in the White House wouldn’t stop Republicans from trying to dismantle healthcare reform. 

{mosads}”Just because we might not be able to get everything we want doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to get what we can,” Boehner said, listing several specific changes he would pursue. 

“There are bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate to take some of these issues out of ObamaCare. We need to put them on the president’s desk and let him choose,” Boehner said. 

Plans to hold another full repeal vote are unsurprising given the issue’s importance to House Republicans. 

Still, GOP leadership in the lower chamber has received criticism for holding more than 50 votes to repeal, dismantle or defund the law this Congress. 

Democrats argue the choices reflect an unproductive obsession with the healthcare law and a waste of the House’s valuable time. 

Like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is expected to become majority leader next year, Boehner on Thursday promised a set of votes attacking specific provisions of the law. 

“This is a bipartisan majority in the House and Senate for repealing the medical device tax,” Boehner said. 

“There is a majority for getting rid of the [Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)],” he added, calling the panel a “rationing board.” 

The device tax was created to raise revenue for the law’s coverage provisions and is opposed by industry. 

The IPAB is a controversial cost-cutting board designed to reduce Medicare spending when it grows too quickly per person. 

Boehner also vowed to attack the individual mandate, a core component of the Affordable Care Act that the White House has promised to protect. 

“There may be recommendations that Republicans have for changes that would undermine the structure of the law, and I’ll be very honest with them about that and say, look, the law doesn’t work if you pull out that piece or that piece,” Obama said at a press conference Wednesday. 

“The individual mandate is a line I can’t cross because … if you’re providing health insurance to people through the private marketplace, then you’ve got to make sure that people can’t game the system and just wait until they get sick before they go try to buy health insurance.”  

Boehner did not say whether House Republicans would offer a legislative alternative to ObamaCare after promising to undertake the effort in 2010. 

“It should be repealed,” he said of the healthcare law, “and should be replaced with common-sense reforms that respect the doctor-patient relationship.”