House and Senate Republicans met to strategize on killing the Democrats' $940 billion healthcare package that's slated for a final vote in the House this weekend.
At a news conference, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) criticized the majority's potential plans to “ram” the legislation through the House by forgoing a traditional roll call vote on the Senate portion of the legislation, and instead deeming it passed under a rule for a companion bill that contains a number of fixes to the Senate bill.
Boehner said his party plans to call for a “straight up or down vote” on the Senate bill.
It's unclear at this point whether House Democrats have enough votes to pass the Senate bill—or the entire healthcare package for that matter. Even if the Senate bill is tied to the companion bill, a vote will still be required on the floor of the House to approve the legislation.
“If they had the votes, they could have passed this bill in June or July of last year when they wanted to. Here we are in the middle of March and they still don't have the votes,” Boehner said.
With the votes still in doubt, “our plan is for it to be defeated in the House over the next few days,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Boehner was equally unimpressed with the latest cost estimate on the Democrats' healthcare package. “They're still going to spend $1 trillion to impose government-run healthcare on the American people.”
