Week ahead: ObamaCare repeal vote No. 40 looms in House

{mosads}Price’s bill represents House Republicans’ effort to keep up the negative pressure on ObamaCare after the recent delay in implementing its employer mandate (which, incidentally, is one of the provisions enforced by the Treasury Department).

It’s also a return to the GOP’s attempt to drag down ObamaCare’s approval by tying it to the unpopular IRS in the wake of allegations that the tax agency improperly targeted certain advocacy groups.

Democrats, of course, are opposed.

“This 40th vote is a vote to take away affordable health care coverage and raise taxes for millions of Americans,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “This is the reach and the meaning of the Republicans’ repeal-only agenda, and the American people deserve better.”

The first House committee hearing of the week will sound a more bipartisan note. The Energy and Commerce Committee is meeting Tuesday and Wednesday to mark up a bill permanently replacing Medicare’s payment formula for doctors, which so far has attracted broad bipartisan support.

After that, though, it’s back to the ObamaCare wars. A subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday accusing the IRS of illegally implementing the healthcare law’s tax subsidies.

Also on Wednesday, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and members of the House Progressive Caucus will hold a press conference about legislation to enact a single-payer healthcare system.

Later that afternoon, a Ways and Means Committee panel holds a hearing on ways to improve the social safety net.

Thursday, the Energy and Commerce Committee will grill Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies Administrator Marilyn Tavenner on the implementation of ObamaCare.

The Ways and Means Committee is holding a similar implementation hearing at the same time, featuring Gary Cohen, one of Tavenner’s top deputies; and officials from the IRS and the Treasury Department.