Just moments after the Supreme Court ruled President Barack Obama’s health care reform law constitutional, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor promised to repeal it.
“The court’s ruling doesn’t mark the end of the debate, it marks a fresh start on the road to repeal,” said McConnell on the Senate floor. “It’s been our goal from the start. It’s our goal now. And we plan to achieve it.”
“The bill was sold to the American people on a deception but it’s not just that the promise of this law was kept, it made the problems it was meant to solve even worse,” McConnell said.
On Thursday morning the Supreme Court delivered its opinion on the law, holding that the individual health insurance mandate is constitutional as a tax. In the 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s four more liberal justices.
President Barack Obama adamantly denied in the past that the individual mandate was a tax.
“The president promised up and down that this bill was not a tax. This is one of the Democrats top selling points because they knew it never would pass if they said it was a tax,” McConnell said. “Well the Supreme Court has spoke, this law is a tax.”
Under the Affordable Care Act, all Americans are required to purchase health insurance, and young people can stay on their parents’ health insurance until the age of 26.
“Now the court has ruled, it’s time to move beyond the constitutional debate and focus on the primary reason this law should be fully repealed and replaced because of the colossal damage it has done to our health care system, the economy and the job market,” McConnell said.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced his intent to move quickly to pass a repeal of the law.
“During the week of July 9th, the House will once again repeal Obamacare, clearing the way for patient-centered reforms that lower costs and increase choice,” Cantor said in a statement.
Any action in the House, however, is unlikely to repeal the law because Democrats still control the Senate. Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid praised the Supreme Court for upholding the law from the Senate floor Thursday morning.