In the waning days of President Barack Obama's presidency, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is vowing to overthrow his signature legislation. Health care reform, better known as "Obamacare" has been a cause of disagreement with conservatives and the U.S. taxpayer alike. McConnell says he will toss out Obamacare with a budget resolution that could be passed in the Senate with a simple majority vote of 51 to 49.
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "Earlier this year, Senate Republicans passed a balanced budget, and with it the necessary procedural tools - via the budget reconciliation process - to bring an end to the nightmare of Obamacare," McConnell said in the joint statement with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).
"Americans have faced skyrocketing health care costs, rampant fraud and more government between them and their doctors. And Republicans are united in working to repeal the broken promises of Obamacare and allow our country to start over fresh with real health reform that Americans deserve," he added.
"We will continue our effort to use reconciliation - as the budget makes clear - to fulfill the promise we made to our constituents," McConnell pledged.
Lee, along with some other conservative senators, promised to withdraw his own amendment to the upcoming must-pass highway-funding bill that would have repealed Obamacare.
Lee's move resulted in pushback from Democrats and some Republicans. Some suggested that adding the Obamacare repeal amendment could endanger the passing of the highway-funding bill.
Lee, in exchange for withdrawing the amendment, insisted on McConnell's support for a future budget reconciliation measure that would defund Obamacare.
During this process, Congress can make changes to an existing law through a set of budget instructions for specific government programs. By law, budget reconciliation cannot be filibustered, and only needs a simple majority to pass.
Lee's budget reconciliation measure is not written as of yet.
Lee released a statement ahead of the deal with McConnell. He explained that he would go back to his original plan of using a budget resolution to repeal Obama's health care law. This would allow the highway bill to pass unencumbered, with the provision that the Republican leadership pledged to support the budget resolution.
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