Jul 11, 2012

No, the House has NOT voted 33 times to repeal Obamacare

Literally every media outlet reporting on the House vote today to repeal Obamacare is saying that it's the 33rd time they've done so. This is a lie. The House has voted only twice to repeal the bill in full.

One of the first acts the 112th Congress took on January 19, 2011 was to vote to repeal Obamacare. It passed 245-184 (3 Democrats, 0 Republicans defecting). The vote today was also to repeal Obamacare. It passed 244-185 (5 Democrats, 0 Republicans defecting). Reminder: Obamacare itself passed 219-212 with 34 Democrats, 0 Republicans defecting.

Of the alleged 33 votes, only #1 and #33 were to repeal the full bill. Votes 2-32 were not votes to repeal. Some were votes to defund portions of the implementation, some votes were to repeal specific portions of the bill, some votes were on general appropriations bills that affected the funding of certain programs from the bill (without defunding them completely), among others. Only one of the 31 other votes would have repealed Obamacare, and only indirectly as part of the Paul Ryan budget proposal; it still was not a direct vote to repeal the law.

Some of the 33 were passed, some failed, some died in the Democrat-controlled Senate, some were passed by the Senate, and some were even signed into law by the President. Would the President have signed a bill to repeal Obamacare? No. Then it's a lie to say that all those votes did so.

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