WASHINGTON, D.C. — First District Congressman David McKinley (R-WV) sees the spending bill as the only vehicle House Republicans have to force the U.S. Senate to take up, what he said are, badly needed changes to the Affordable Care Act.
“The real mission, the real thing here, is to try to correct it,” said McKinley on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.” “It (the health care law) is the law of the land. Let’s work to correct it.”
Up to now, McKinley said the U.S. Senate has been unwilling to take up U.S. House bills to modify the health care reform law that is in the process of being fully implemented.
That is why, he said, U.S. House leaders have, so far, refused to put a bill that would fully fund the government, without health care strings attached to it, up for vote. U.S. Senators are holding out for a clean bill.
The deadlock continued Wednesday on day two of a partial federal government shutdown. The new fiscal year started Tuesday and thousands of federal workers in West Virginia and even more across the United States have been off the job since then.
“You’ve got to find, in parlance of Washington, a must pass bill, something that they have to vote on. This is our first chance to try to link it to something that they have to debate,” said McKinley. “It was an effort to try to force some dialogue.”
There is another deadline looming. In two weeks, the federal government will hit the current debt limit and will run out of money soon after Oct. 17 unless Congress raises that limit.