Republicans have won a gateway victory in Congress in their seven-year trek toward scuttling President Barack Obama's health care law. With a near party-line 227-198 House vote, Congress gave final approval Friday to a budget that will ease passage of a still-unwritten bill replacing Obama's overhaul with a GOP edition. The budget — the Senate approved it Thursday — bars Democratic senators from blocking that future legislation with a filibuster. Congressional Republicans have made annulling Obama's law and replacing it a top goal for the past seven years. Many Republicans have insisted on learning how their party will re-craft the nation's $3 trillion-a-year health care system before voting to void existing programs.

Source: ABC News January 14, 2017 08:06 UTC