House Votes To Cut Preventive Care Fund

The House voted late Wednesday to repeal another provision of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, another step towards fulfilling a GOP pledge to repeal and defund the entire bill.

Four Democrats joined the Republican majority in a 236-183 vote to repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a key, Democrats say, provision that promotes preventive care in local communities and helps to reduce disease. However, it’s highly unlikely the Senate will pass the bill and President Obama issued a statement earlier Wednesday threatening to veto the measure should it survive the upper chamber.

“The bill neither advances the key objectives of the Affordable Care Act of better and more affordable care nor offers alternative solutions for meeting these important objectives,” a White House statement reads. “It instead repeals the Prevention and Public Health Fund and could worsen the Nation’s health and increase system costs by defunding prevention activities.”

Republicans have long argued that the Prevention and Public Health Fund is a provision that grants the Department of Health and Human Services authority to spend federal funding at will. Additionally, the GOP does not believe preventive care funding should be mandatory but discretionary.

The four Democrats who crossed party lines in opposition of the preventive care fund were Congressmen Collin Peterson (Minn.), Dan Boren (Okla.) Mike McIntyre (N.C.) and Jason Altmire (Pa.).