The Hill News

Republicans in Congress will do whatever they can to ensure that President Obama's healthcare law is "never fully implemented," according to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Boehner released a video statement Wednesday marking the one-year anniversary of the signing of the health law, pledging that the House GOP will keep up its fight despite passing two measures to counteract it that did not advance past the House.

{mosads}"In short, we will do whatever we can to ensure ObamaCare is never fully implemented," he said. 

Both political parties this week have returned to similar themes while using the law's anniversary to tussle over its future.

Republicans say the law will drive up costs of health insurance and diminish the quality of care, while Democrats have called the law a historic achievement that will expand access to healthcare and lower costs.

“Others before us gave our nation Social Security and Medic! are," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement Tuesday. "With the Affordable Care Act, we built on that same tradition â€" adding access to health coverage for all Americans."

House Republicans, who rode into the majority while railing against the law, have already passed a stand-alone measure that repeals the law and attached defunding provisions to their initial proposal to fund the government for the rest of the year. Both proposals have failed to advance in the Democrat-controlled Senate. 

Still, Boehner said Republicans will hold hearings and more votes "to take this law apart, step by step."

That could come as welcome news to conservative members of the GOP conference, some of whom have suggested that party leaders have not done enough to roll back the healthcare law. A number of House Republicans voted against two recent stopgap funding bills since they did not contain language defunding the health law.

"For all that, a more fundamental promise was broken whe! n this g overnment takeover of health care was pushed through," Boehner said. "That day, that week, the people said one thing, and their government did another. Yet the people, unfazed by Washington’s payoffs and backroom deals, kept speaking out as the law proved unpopular, unaffordable, and unconstitutional."