GOP sends message on Obamacare

WASHINGTON — Pressing an election-year point, Republicans pushed yet another bill through the House on Wednesday to repeal the nation’s two-year-old health care law, a maneuver that forced Democrats to choose between President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement and a public that is persistently skeptical of its value.

The vote was 244-185, with five Democrats defectors siding with Republicans. By Republican count, the vote marked the 33rd time in 18 months that the tea party-infused GOP majority has tried to eliminate, defund or otherwise scale back the program — opponents scornfully call it “Obamacare” — since Republicans took control of the House.

Will the Affordable Care Act become the undoing of Obama’s re-election bid or the making of it?