If at first you don't succeed ...

• Author: Lueders, Bill
• Position: SMOKING GUN - Brief article

In early January, Republicans in Congress made what was reported to be their sixty-second effort to repeal part or all of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare. This number is a bit misleading, as it includes batches of defeated amendments as well as tweaks to the law that passed both houses and were signed into law by President Obama.

But there have in fact been numerous failed efforts to kill or undermine the act that has brought health coverage to 17.6 million Americans through last September, and that GOP contenders for President vow to repeal. Here, drawn from a March 21, 2014, article in The Washington Post and other sources, are some of them:

The House passes the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act to undo the ACA on a mostly party-line vote of 245 to 189. The Senate, where the effective threshold for passage is 60 votes, doesn't act.

The House, on a 235 to 193 vote, passes a version of the fiscal 2012 budget introduced by Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, that includes provisions to repeal and defund the law. The Senate doesn't act.

On a 223 to 181 vote, with seven Democrats in favor and ten Republicans opposed, the House passes the Protecting Access to Healthcare Act to eliminate the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which Sarah Palin dubbed the "death panel." The...