Senate defeats Republican-led health-care repeal effort

By Felicia Sonmez

Updated: 7:15 p.m.

The Senate on Wednesday defeated a Republican-led effort to repeal the entire national health-care overhaul, with lawmakers voting strictly along party lines. The decision underscores the hurdle that the GOP faces in that Democratic-majority chamber as it tries to overturn the law.

All 50 Senate Democrats present and one independent voted against the repeal, while all 47 Republicans voted in favor. Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) were not present. The measure was proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Republicans needed the support of 13 Democrats for the measure to move forward because of a Democratic-led procedural move that set up a 60-vote hurdle.

Democrats' unanimous opposition to the repeal came even though several vulnerable lawmakers up for re-election in 2012, including Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), had come under pressure to support repeal.

While the full repeal measure fell short, a separate health-care amendment offered by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) sailed through the Senate with bipartisan support. The Stabenow proposal, which would repeal an unpopular tax-reporting provision of the law that opponents say overburdens small businesses, passed on an 81-to-17 vote. The House has not yet considered that proposal.

A third amendment offered by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) was defeated on a 44-to-54 vote. That amendment, which was offered shortly before Wednesday's proposals came to the floor, was similar to Stabenow's but would have paid for the change by ending tax breaks for oil companies.

All three amendments were offered to an unrelated bill on funding of the Federal Aviation Administration. They came two days after a federal judge in Florida struck down the entire health-care law. The legal challenge to the law is expected to be decided ultimately by the Supreme Court.

Senate Republican leaders pushed back against the idea that the vote was a symbolic one.

"There's a narrative I've seen and read out there that this was somehow a futile act because Republicans didn't have the votes to repeal Obamacare, but I have to tell you, these are the first steps in a long road that will culminate in 2012 whereby we will expose the flaws and the weaknesses in this legislation, where the courts will continue to review them ... and we know that path that leads to the Judicial Branch is going to end up in the United States Supreme Court," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said at a press conference held by GOP leaders after Wednesday's vote.

The Republican-majority House has already voted to repeal the law.

Earlier Wednesday, lawmakers took to the Senate floor, the TV airwaves and to a Judiciary Committee to heatedly debate the health-care law.

In one of the more contentious moments on the Senate floor, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) delivered a blistering speech accusing Republicans of offering "one more hollow, symbolic pander-to-the-masses amendment."

"If you want to rewrite the bill, keep your promise, Republican Party, that if you want to repeal, then let's go replace," Mikulski said. "I want to hear their ideas for replacement. I challenge them right here, right now, today on this amendment."



Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that repealing the health care law will increase the deficit by $230 billion.

"What I'm saying is, garbage in, garbage out," McCain said.

Wednesday's amendments were the first in the Senate dealing with health care reform, but they likely won't be the last. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who on Tuesday introduced legislation with Sen. John Barasso (R-Wyo.) that would allow states to opt out of provisions of the health care law, has signaled that Republicans may offer more health-care-related amendments.

And amid increasing debate over the constitutionality of the health care overhaul, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a resolution on Wednesday requesting that the Supreme Court conduct an expedited review of the law.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee held its first-ever hearing on the constitutionality of the health-care overhaul. Five legal experts were called to testify: Democrats called Oregon Attorney General John Kroger and former solicitors general Walter Dellinger and Charles Fried as witnesses while Republicans called Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett and attorney Michael Carvin.

The debate centered on the question of whether Congress overstepped its constitutional authority when it passed the health care law last year. Proponents of health care reform argue that Congress was exercising its constitutional power to regulate commerce, while opponents say that Congress went too far by requiring that those who don't buy health insurance face a tax penalty.

Fried, Kroger and Dellinger testified that they believed the individual mandate is constitutional.

"I come here not as a partisan for this act," said Fried, who served as solicitor general under Ronald Reagan. "I think there are lots of problems with it. I'm not sure it's good policy. I'm not sure it's going to make the country any better. But I am quite sure that the health care mandate is constitutional."

Carvin and Barnett argued otherwise. Carvin, who served in the Reagan administration as well as on George W. Bush's legal team in the 2000 Florida recount, called the individual mandate an "abuse of the commerce power." He added that the argument over activity versus inactivity "is not some semantic lawyer's trick, something we came up with in response to the health care act. It's a core principle that goes to the most basic constitutional freedoms and the limits on federal enumerated powers."

Barnett, who argued a key commerce clause case before the Supreme Court in 2004, said that the "individual mandate is neither necessary nor proper."

Some Senate Republicans noted Wednesday that the "1099" amendment offered by Stabenow was nearly identical to one offered by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.).

"It turns out Senator Johanns did such an outstanding job raising awareness about the 1099 requirement that Democrats took the idea and are now claiming it as their own, which is fine with us," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "It's not a bad precedent actually. We've got a lot of other good ideas that we'd be happy to share."

Stabenow spokesperson Cullen Schwarz said that Stabenow was "glad" that Johanns also supported 1099 repeal and noted that she was co-sponsoring his amendment as well as offering her own. Schwarz added that Stabenow and her supporters believed that her version was best because it exempts the Social Security Administration from potential cuts as a way to pay for repeal.

"Senator Stabenow just wants a common sense fix to this problem and hopes to have strong bipartisan support to remove this onerous requirement on small businesses," Schwarz said.