Speaker Paul Ryan said the House will use reconciliation in order to defund Planned Parenthood in the Obamacare repeal bill.
“We think reconciliation is the tool, because that gets it in law,” Mr. Ryan said at a press conference Tuesday. “Reconciliation is the way to go.”
Congress could also defund Planned Parenthood through the continuing resolution funding the government, which expires April 28. But Senate Democrats could filibuster the must-pass legislation and shut down the government.
Mr. Ryan said there is no timetable for the new health care bill.
“I’m not going to put a timeline on it, because this is too important to not get right and to put an artificial timeline on it,” he said.
Planned Parenthood receives nearly $500 million in taxpayer funding annually.
The American Health Care Act would have defunded the abortion provider for one year. But the House Freedom Caucus and conservative interest groups opposed the legislation, saying it did not go far enough to roll back Obamacare.
House leadership pulled the bill from the floor Friday without a vote.
After the AHCA’s failure, the pro-life movement urged Congress to defund Planned Parenthood through a new reconciliation bill as soon as possible.
“Congress and President Trump must act now to use this current budget reconciliation bill to end the forced taxpayer funding of abortion giant Planned Parenthood and end the use of Obamacare subsidies to buy health insurance that pays for abortions,” Lila Rose, president of Live Action, said in a statement.
Ms. Rose said Planned Parenthood “gets another $1.5 million from taxpayers to keep its doors open and kill 887 more preborn children” every day the reconciliation bill is delayed.
• Bradford Richardson can be reached at brichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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