News

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – House Republican leaders say that since they were unsuccessful in repealing the national health care law, they will instead seek to defund the program.

Current funding for the federal government will expire on March 4, which means that a new continuing resolution (CR) will have to be passed by Congress before then in order to continue financing the government’s operations.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has told reporters that the House Appropriations Committee is drafting a spending bill that will take the federal government to the end of the fiscal year.

While the measure to defund the health care bill will not be part of the spending bill’s original language, it will be included as an amendment. Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R-Mont.), chairman of the House appropriations panel overseeing the Health and Human Services Department, is expected to submit the amendment.

The Hill reports that Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) told a town-hall style meeting of Tea Party activists in Washington, D.C. that Democrats used the same strategy to stop the Vietnam War, by cutting off the war’s funding.

He said the next order of business would be permanently “shutting off all funding that’s been automatically put in the pipeline by the passage of ObamaCare.”

Defunding Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is part of a comprehensive GOP approach to taking down or limiting the impact of the government-centered health care reform, which is opposed by nearly all pro-life organizations.

Another pro-life measure under consideration in the House related to PPACA is the Protect Life Act (HR 358), sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Penn.), which bans public funds from going to any health coverage plan that subsidizes elective abortion, with exceptions for cases involving rape, incest, and the physical life of the mother.