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WASHINGTON - Less than 24 hours after voting to repeal the new health care law, House Republicans moved ahead Thursday with more targeted efforts to advance their own health care initiatives.

At the same time, Speaker John Boehner said Republicans would push for much stricter limits on abortion in federal programs, including those created by the new law.

Boehner, R-Ohio, called the abortion bill -- which is co-sponsored by Democrat Rep. Daniel Lipinski of Illinois -- "one of our highest legislative priorities." The legislation would place more restrictions on federal funding for abortion services, including a ban that would make insurance plans that cover abortions ineligible for standard tax exemptions.

Meanwhile, a group of conservative House Republicans unveiled a fiscal plan that calls for dramatic reductions in government spending -- cuts of $2.5 trillion over the next decade, far more than the party has sought so far. The proposal, from the Republican Study Committee, a conservative bloc that counts 80 percent of House Republicans as members, calls for immediate reductions of at least $100 billion, compared with cuts in the current fiscal year of up to $80 billion being sought by party leaders.

The $2.5 trillion in cuts would exclude the military and would not touch the big entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security. As a result, its effect on the entire array of government programs, among them education, domestic security, transportation, law enforcement and medical research, would be nothing short of drastic.

Committee leaders said this was appropriate and necessary, given the government's $14 trillion debt and annual deficits at their highest levels since the years just after World War II.

The proposal also would prohibit any spending this year to implement the new health care law. It would bar the Department of Justice from defending the law against court challenges and stop federal aid to states to help them prop up their Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.

The cuts would require the agreement of the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House, which is unlikely.

House Republicans have pledged to not only repeal the health care overhaul that President Obama signed in March, but also develop a set of alternatives. By a 253-175 vote, the House on Thursday directed four committees to draft legislation that would replace the health care law. The directive sets forth 13 objectives, including lowering premium costs, assuring access to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and increasing the number of insured Americans, all without raising taxes. Fourteen Democrats joined a united GOP in support.

But most Democrats dismissed the legislation. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called it "a largely empty resolution."

Meanwhile, the Obama administration announced a new set of federal grants to help states establish insurance exchanges starting in 2014. These state-based exchanges, which are envisioned as insurance equivalents of such travel sites as Expedia, are to become the central, Internet-based marketplace for consumers who do not get health benefits at work. Every state but Minnesota and Alaska already received a $1 million grant to plan these exchanges. Massachusetts and Utah had exchanges before the new law was enacted.

The Tribune Washington Bureau and the New York Times contributed to this report.