Via Healthwatch:

House Republicans attacked the 2010 healthcare law Wednesday for expanding a preventive care grant program that they said, in the past, funded pet spaying and neutering in Tennessee.

A statement from Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans also blasted grants they said paid for urban farming initiatives and the improvement of city bike lanes.

These projects are “examples of what we consider excessive, wasteful government spending,” said Debbee Keller, a GOP spokeswoman, “and the healthcare law will funnel money to others like them.”

“They are certainly not within the boundaries of what the Obama administration normally sells as ‘preventive care,'” Keller added.

Republicans frequently call for attention to federally funded projects — health-related and otherwise — that they see as trivial.

This particular push comes a week after the conference characterized a preventive healthcare fund created by the Affordable Care Act as “slush” money and said the fund could be used to extend a cut to student loan interest rates set to expire in July.

Their vote on the plan prompted a backlash from Democrats and advocates.

“You call preventive care a ‘slush fund’?” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.