On Tuesday, the House voted, 241-186, to override President Obama's veto of a bill that would gut the Affordable Care Act and end federal funding of Planned Parenthood, falling nearly 50 votes short of the two-thirds majority Republicans needed to thwart Obama's veto. Republican leaders were expecting the defeat, but they painted the exercise as a selling point for electing a Republican president in November. "The president is the only person standing in the way of what the American people want," said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), "so our job now is to stand up for them, to demonstrate for them who is on their side."
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on Price's House Budget Committee, said it was fitting that the vote was on Groundhog Day, since House Republicans had voted to repeal ObamaCare 62 times before and voted 11 other times to defund Planned Parenthood. "It probably breaks all records in wasting taxpayer time and money," he said before the vote. "This is a futile gesture, part of an obsession to try to undo affordable care for 22 million Americans, and it's not going to happen."
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