WASHINGTON—Republicans launched their latest, doomed try to kill President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul on Tuesday. With no chance of succeeding, the House vote was solely an exercise in election-year political messaging.
Tuesday’s vote was an attempt to override Obama’s veto last month of legislation gutting much of the law and ending federal payments to Planned Parenthood. Republicans had no chance of mustering the two-thirds majority needed to reverse a veto, but Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the effort would send an important signal.
“What we’re proving today is if we have a Republican president next year, we will repeal Obamacare,” Ryan told reporters, using a nickname for a law that GOP lawmakers have despised since it was pushed through Congress six years ago.
