Congress

Despite Costs, House Voting Again to Overturn ACA

Republicans in Congress are planning to vote for approximately the 60th time to overturn all or parts of the Affordable Care Act, according to TheHill.com. The vote will come at a high price to taxpayers and on the heels of a new, much lower cost estimate on the ACA from the Congressional Budget Office.

For taxpayers, the previously calculated cost for each vote to overturn all or some of the ACA was set at approximately $1.45 million per vote, according to numbers from the Congressional Research Service and CBSNews.com.

Based on those numbers, Congress will have spent approximately $87 million in symbolic votes that either die in the U.S. Senate or will not be signed by President Barack Obama since 2010. The upcoming bill is also likely to either be filibustered in the Senate or get vetoed by President Obama.

At the same time, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Affordable Care Act will cost 20 percent less than originally projected over the next decade. The CBO said that part of the reason the costs are declining is the slowdown in the growth of health care costs overall, according to the Washington Post.

All of the fighting over the Affordable Care Act may be a moot point by June depending on how the Supreme Court rules in the case of King vs. Burwell. If the court rules against the law, it would strike down federal subsidies offered under the ACA which could cripple the law and take away health insurance from millions of Americans who received subsidies to help pay for coverage.

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