The Affordable Healthcare Act in the U.S. Supreme Court -…

The Republican-led House of Representatives voted Wednesday to repeal President Obama’s health-care law, a symbolic gesture meant to highlight the GOP’s continued commitment to ending it despite a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that it is constitutional.

The vote to overturn the Affordable Care Act was 244 to 185, with five Democrats joining all Republicans who voted in supporting the law’s elimination.

It was the 33rd time Republicans have moved to repeal all or part of the law since the party took control of the House in January 2010, a now-familiar ritual the GOP said demonstrated the depth of its opposition. The repeal will not be passed by the Democratic-led Senate.

“I think this is an opportunity to save our economy,” said House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). “For those who still support repealing this harmful health-care law, we’re giving our colleagues in the Senate another chance to heed the will of the American people. And for those who did not support repeal the last time, it’s a chance for our colleagues to reconsider.”

Democrats countered that Republicans were wasting time on a settled debate. They said the court ruling is a sign that it is time to move forward with the law’s implementation.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) termed the vote “legislation to nowhere” that would result in a loss of protections for millions of Americans who will benefit from the law’s provisions, including free preventative care, removal of lifetime health-care spending caps and the requirement that insurance companies extend coverage to those with preexisting conditions.

Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called the vote the Republican’s “boil-the-bunny moment,” suggesting a GOP obsession similar to that displayed by a leading character in the 1980s movie Fatal Attraction.

In a sign that the politics surrounding the law may have shifted to a degree since the court ruling, a number of Republicans have been emphasizing the need to quickly shift to other ways to implement those popular aspects of the law, even as they insisted the measure must be repealed in its entirety.

“As a doctor I fully endorse -- and as a Republican I fully endorse -- the goals of the 2010 health law,” said New York Rep. Nan A.S. Hayworth (R), an ophthalmologist, on Tuesday. “Every American should have access to good, affordable health care and affordable, portable health insurance.”

In moderate New Hampshire, Rep. Charlie Bass (R) indicated he wanted to find a way to allow young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans and to prevent insurance companies from barring those with pre-existing conditions from purchasing coverage.

Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.) said he was “ready to sit down with my colleagues from both sides of the aisle and health care community members to amend this law as needed.”

“There are more voices now saying we’ve got to have something to replace the law with,” said one Republican House member, who asked not to be named so he could freely describe the thinking of GOP colleagues. “And some substance to the replacement, because that’s what they’re hearing back home, because that’s what the other side hits us on. There are stronger calls for that within the conference.”

Those arguments may reflect new poll numbers, which show the legislation is viewed less negatively than it was before the ruling.

In a Washington Post-ABC poll released this week, Americans were evenly split — 47 percent to 47 percent — on whether they supported or opposed the law. That represented a significant improvement for the law from April, when 39 percent backed it and 53 percent opposed it. And only one-third of respondents said they favored repealing the legislation in all or part.

GOP arguments for repeal have also shifted in the wake of the court ruling. Muted was the argument that requiring all Americans to obtain health insurance by 2014 was an unprecedented and unconstitutional overreach of federal power--a contention that proved the emotional grist behind the growth of the Tea Party in 2010.

Instead, Republicans emphasized their belief that the law has imposed economic uncertainty on American business, will cost more than government can afford and imposes a new tax on those who do not comply with the requirement to buy insurance.

With the election approaching, both parties used the vote as an opportunity to energize their own supporters--with Democrats stepping up their defense of the law even as Republicans characterized the vote as fulfilling an oft-stated promised of the 2010 mid-term election.

In Houston, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was booed before a Democratic-leaning crowd at the NAACP for promising to act to repeal the law if elected.

On the Hill, Democrats held a news conference with ordinary Americans who talked about benefits they receive from the law. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hit Republicans for voting to repeal a law that included, among its many provisions, items paring back health care perks for members of Congress.

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), a doctor who serves as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, called that argument “typical demagoguery.” He said the public supports repeal, particularly now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the penalty imposed on those who do not buy insurance by 2014 is a tax.

“I don’t think there’s anyone on the other side who could say on the other side that if this had been billed as a tax, it would have passed,” he said. “The American people know this is a bad law and they know that the law needs to go away.”

WASHINGTON — Waging old battles with new zeal, the House passed a bill on Wednesday to repeal President Obama’s health care overhaul law less than two weeks after the Supreme Court upheld its major provisions as constitutional.

The bill was approved by a vote of 244 to 185, with five Democrats supporting repeal.

It has no chance of approval in the Senate and would face a veto from Mr. Obama if it ever got to him. But the House debate exposed the depth of passion over efforts to remake the health care system and suggested that the fight would continue next year, regardless of who wins the November elections for president and Congress.

House Republican leaders had many reasons for scheduling another vote to repeal the bill. They detest the 2010 law. They see it as a winning political issue for them. And they wanted to placate freshman Republicans like Representative Ben Quayle of Arizona, who described repeal of the health care law as a way to protect constituents from “the tyranny of government overreach.'’

The House has voted more than 30 times to repeal part or all of the 2010 law or to choke off funds needed for various provisions, including coverage of more than 30 million uninsured people.

Democrats said the House was wasting time that would have been better spent trying to create jobs.

But Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, said: “We’re going to keep at it until we get this legislation off the books. It was a bad bill, it has become a bad law.'’

In two days of House debate this week, both parties recycled talking points with minor changes to take account of the recent Supreme Court decision.

Democrats said the ruling vindicated their policies, including a requirement for most Americans to have health insurance, starting in 2014. And they said Mr. Obama needed to do a better job of defending the law, on which public opinion is still deeply divided.

The Supreme Court ruling fired up Republicans because, they said, it confirmed their argument that the law would impose a tax, not just a penalty, on people who go without health insurance.

“The court has spoken," said Representative Sandy Adams, Republican of Florida. “'Obamacare' is a tax.'’

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, described the law as one of the Democrats’ greatest achievements, making health care “a right, not a privilege, for all Americans.'’ But Republicans are still seething over how the law was adopted, without any Republican votes.

Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, said the health law “never would have gotten passed'’ if the penalty for violating the individual mandate had been openly acknowledged and advertised as a tax.

Democrats said the attacks were overblown. And they gleefully quoted statements by Mitt Romney supporting the idea of an individual mandate as part of the health plan adopted in Massachusetts in 2006, when he was governor.

Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said that “almost no one'’ would pay the federal penalty.

“The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 1.4 percent of Americans will pay anything for refusing to purchase insurance,'’ Mr. Levin said. “That is just about identical to the percent of people in Massachusetts who have paid the penalty under Governor Romney’s health care law.'’

Contrary to Republican claims, Mr. Levin said the federal law should be viewed as a tax cut for middle-income people because it would provide tax credits to help them pay premiums for private health insurance, which often costs more than $15,000 a year for family coverage.

Mr. Romney, the Republicans’ likely presidential nominee, says he would take immediate action to roll back the federal law if he wins the White House.

Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, a strong supporter of the 2010 law, said members of his party had made “a lot of mistakes'’ in selling its benefits to the public. Faced with unrelenting Republican opposition, he said, “the administration has not made the case that uninsured people get health care'’ under the law.

The Supreme Court rejected claims that the individual mandate was justified by Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, but upheld it as a permissible exercise of Congress’s taxing power.

Republicans said that imposing a mandate by the tax power was scarier than using the commerce power. And they said it set a precedent by taxing “inactivity.'’

“How is this different from the government requiring Americans to purchase broccoli or pay a tax for not doing so?'’ asked Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “How is this different from the government requiring Americans to purchase low-fat foods or pay a tax as a means to fight the obesity epidemic?'’

Representative Daniel Lipinski, Democrat of Illinois, was a lonely voice pleading for a middle way. “We need a fix, not a repeal,'’ he said, asserting that Congress should keep “good parts of the law'’ and add stronger cost controls.