Boehner seeks to force Senate health care vote in budget

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders said Tuesday they will try to force the Democratic-led Senate to vote on defunding President Barack Obama’s health-care law before the House will agree to enact a stopgap government-funding measure.

“Our goal here is not to shut down the government,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters in Washington. “Our goal is to cut spending and to stop Obamacare.”

Boehner said he wants to send a bill eliminating funds for the health-care law to the Senate and “force them to actually have a vote on getting rid of Obamacare.”

Second-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois dismissed the strategy.

“This will be the 41st, I believe, futile House vote on Obamacare,” Durbin said in an interview at the Capitol. “The speaker obviously thinks that it serves his purposes within his caucus, but it’s clearly a non-starter in the Senate.”

The House leaders’ plan also hasn’t yet received the backing of rank-and-file House Republicans, many of whom want a binding measure to eliminate funding for the Affordable Care Act. The House plan would allow a short-term spending measure to be enacted even if the Senate voted not to strip health-care funding.

“We will send to the Senate the provision which says, up or down, are you for defunding Obamacare or not?” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, told reporters today. “It’s time for the Senate to stand up and tell their constituents where they stand on this atrocity of a law.”

Congressional leaders of both parties plan to meet Sept. 12 to discuss government funding and the U.S. debt ceiling. Congress must enact a spending measure to keep the government operating beyond the end of September. The U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit in mid-October.

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said party leaders will be assessing members’ support of the plan to pair the health-care and spending-bill votes. Rogers, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he supports the strategy because it satisfies members’ needs for up-or-down votes on both measures.

Asked whether it would have enough support to pass, Rogers said, “we’ll see.”

Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., said lawmakers were “just listening” to the leadership’s plan and he didn’t take a position. “I’ll do everything I can to stop Obamacare from going into place,” he said.

Several Republicans expressed opposition because they said they see the strategy as non-binding.

“Every member of the conference said they’re going to do everything they can to defund Obamacare, and our leadership said in there they know this strategy will not defund Obamacare,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., said in an interview.

Michigan Republican Justin Amash said in a message posted on Twitter : “I do not support the hocuspocus plan that doesn’t really defund Obamacare.”

The White House and lawmakers in Congress haven’t come up with a compromise to keep the government running and avoid a rerun of previous showdowns over the debt limit.

Senate Majority Harry Reid sent a letter to Boehner, an Ohio Republican, requesting the Sept. 12 meeting with all four leaders, according to a congressional aide who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly because the letter wasn’t released. The two will meet with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, aides said.

The House has voted 40 times to repeal, delay or defund all or part of the health-care law. The Senate has refused to take up almost all of those measures. About 80 House Republicans insist on stripping the funding as a condition of enacting a spending bill to keep the government operating after Sept. 30.

The stopgap funding measure probably would maintain spending at about the current annualized rate of $988 billion from Oct. 1, when the new government fiscal year begins, through Dec. 15, said two congressional aides who sought anonymity to discuss the proposal.

White House officials and House Republicans have said they are determined not to allow a default on U.S. government debt. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in an Aug. 26 letter to Boehner that the government would have difficulty functioning on tax revenue of about $50 billion a day.

That’s because the government must make 80 million payments each month to pay Social Security recipients and military personnel as well as other obligations such as Medicare reimbursements to doctors and hospitals, Lew said.

The 80 House Republicans who signed a letter last month urging their leaders to support defunding the health-care law are short of a “majority of the majority” that is usually the benchmark for consensus among the chamber’s 233 Republicans.

A vote on the temporary spending legislation is set for later this week, according to a legislative schedule posted on Cantor’s website.

— With assistance from James Rowley, Richard Rubin and Derek Wallbank in Washington.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.