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The Senate approved legislation on Thursday night that would repeal President Obama’s landmark health care law, a goal of Republicans since the law was adopted in March 2010. The measure, which would also halt federal financing for Planned Parenthood, will now be sent to the House, which adopted a different version last month. The bill is ultimately expected to pass both chambers, but faces certain veto by Mr. Obama. (Herszenhorn, 12/3)

With a House rubber stamp expected in days, the bill would be the first to reach Obama's desk demolishing his 2010 health care overhaul, one of his proudest domestic achievements, and halting federal payments to Planned Parenthood. Congress has voted dozens of times to repeal or weaken the health law and repeatedly against Planned Parenthood's funding, but until now Democrats thwarted Republicans from shipping the legislation to the White House. (Fram, 12/3)

But yanking about 17 million Americans off health insurance may be easier as a campaign slogan than a policy initiative, and Thursday’s long-awaited vote to pass a repeal bill in the Senate – a first -- proved difficult until the final gavel. (Mascaro, 12/3)

Democrats say the 2010 Affordable Care Act — better known as Obamacare — has helped 17.6 million Americans gain medical coverage and has stopped insurance companies from refusing to insure patients with pre-existing conditions. "Everybody knows (repeal) is a gesture in futility," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., before the vote. "Let's move on from repeal and start making the Affordable Care Act work even better for the American people." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Obamacare has raised health care costs, limited patients' ability to choose their doctors, and hurt the already struggling middle class. (Kelly, 12/4)

Republicans on Capitol Hill are sending their long-sought Obamacare repeal on a kamikaze mission to the president’s desk. The GOP has big reasons to move ahead with a doomed mission: to force the president to veto the bill, to fulfill a promise to its base and to lay the groundwork to truly repeal Obamacare under a Republican president in 2017. It’s not just optics. Republicans are carefully constructing a legislative strategy, based on Senate rules and precedents, to make it easier to unravel the health law in 2017 if a Republican wins the White House. (Haberkorn, 12/3)

The Senate on Thursday passed legislation to strip Planned Parenthood Federation of America of federal funding for one year and repeal large chunks of the Affordable Care Act. The vote on the bill, known as a budget reconciliation measure, is symbolic because President Barack Obama is expected to veto it. ... Republicans spent weeks hammering out the strategy targeting Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act. The legislation aims to deal with GOP objections to ACA and Planned Parenthood through reconciliation rather than the omnibus spending bill, where a standoff with Democrats could again raise the specter of a government shutdown. (Armour, 12/3)

Even before the vote occurred, Democratic operatives seized on it as evidence that the GOP-led Congress is too extreme. “The Republican-led Senate is spending the last few hours of its unimpressive working year to attack the health care services American women and families in every single state rely on,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee national press secretary Lauren Passalacqua. “Next fall, voters will remember how their Senators ignored the problems that actually demand Congressional action to wage a dangerous ideological crusade.” (Snell, 12/3)

The Republican push to strip Planned Parenthood of federal health-care funding, which nearly prompted a government shutdown in October, appears to have been abandoned in the latest round of congressional spending negotiations. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Reuters on Wednesday that Republicans “had purposefully taken the Planned Parenthood language out” of their latest proposal for a massive government spending bill that must be passed ahead of a Dec. 11 deadline. (DeBonis, 12/3)