Repealing Healthcare Not Among Senate GOP’s New Year’s Resolutions
Senate Republicans will place debt reduction, job creation and fighting terrorism at the top of their priority list when the 112th Congress convenes this week, according to newly-elected Republican Kelly Ayotte (N.H.).
Delivering the GOP’s weekly address, Ayotte, a tea party favorite who rode a Republican wave of momentum in 2010 to victory over former Rep. Paul Hodes (D) in the November election, said her party will govern conservatively.
“The American people sent us to Congress with clear instructions — make government smaller, not bigger,” she said.
Ayotte said that she and her colleagues will focus on cutting “wasteful” spending and helping jumpstart the nation’s struggling job market. However, she made no mention of House Republicans’ planned efforts to repeal key provisions of President Obama’s healthcare reform law, passed by Democrats last year.
GOP leaders in the lower chamber, including incoming Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), have made it no secret that they would like to legislatively abolish parts of the law, such as a measure that would require businesses to pay taxes on purchases of goods valued at over $600. Furthermore, a number of Republican state Attorneys General have filed suit against a controversial section of the law that would require individuals and families to purchase health insurance starting in 2014.
Yesterday, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he felt confident that a vote to scale back the new law would occur soon.
“We have 242 Republicans,” he said on the Fox News channel. “There will be a significant number of Democrats, I think, that will join us. You will remember when that vote passed in the House last March, it only passed by seven votes.”
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