House GOP to force vote to nix individual mandate from health reform

House Republicans will look to force a vote Tuesday afternoon to repeal the individual mandate provisions within Democrats' healthcare bill.

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, will offer a motion to recommit on a small-business tax cut bill this afternoon that would look to strike the provision from the Democrats' healthcare reform law.

The vote comes as part of the GOP's "America Speaking Out" initiative, one of House Republicans' programs seeking online engagement with constituents.

The resolution takes aim at one of the parts of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats' signature legislation, the individual mandate. Republicans had often protested the measure within the healthcare bill, arguing that it would drive up costs for consumers and that it was possibly unconstitutional.

But Democrats say it's one of the few provisions that Republicans would typically support.

"Washington Republicans are actually going to try to repeal one of the few decent ideas they have come up with -- the individual mandate," Doug Thornell, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D- Md.), said in a statement. "This was at the heart of Romneycare in Massachusetts and the GOP counterproposal in '93 and it has worked. If Republicans want to go on record having voted to raise premiums in the exchange by nearly 40 percent and severely undermine employer sponsored healthcare they can go ahead and try."

--Updated at 6:14 p.m.