60 Senators vote to allow debate on Reid health care reform bill: What’s next?
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The bill has not been killed.
At 7:54 pm eastern time, voting began on a motion to close debate over whether or not to proceed to debate on the health care reform legislation. That’s a mouthful, eh? In what’s a little more like English, that mans 58 Senate Democrats, alongside Independents Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voted to end a Republican filibuster (’invoke cloture’) that prevented debate over the health care reform legislation knitted together by Senate Major Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, caviled on the floor of the Senate in his final speech about how Republicans don’t want to ‘end the debate,’ they just want to ’start over’ and ‘change the debate’ to ‘common sense’ terms for health care reform. That’s because of what Senator McConnell acknowledged earlier in a press conference, according to The Hill:
“Well over 95 percent of the time, I’m told, when we approve a motion to proceed to a bill, the bill is ultimately approved,” McConnell said. “Most of the time, when we proceed on the bill, the bill eventually passes.”
And that’s a little strange to me. If Senator McConnell is right, and the American people hate this bill so much, then why won’t the Minority leader just say, “You know what, let ‘em go? They’ll pay for it next November, and then we’ll start the work of repealing it.” That’s getting to the approach that the National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru proposed in a recent blog post, and it seems like a more sensible political tactic than what McConnell still seems to be doing – urging one Democratic member to cross over and vote against starting debate over the bill.
Of course, once the bill begins, we’re not sure what we’ll end up with. Republicans went through a lengthy colloquy today about the Stupak amendment not being mirrored in the Senate version of the health care bill, and the abortion compromise that winds up in the final legislation could be a poison pill for either the pro-choice or anti-abortion sides in the Congress.
There is also a considerable question over the public option. Senators Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, and Joe Lieberman are all on record explicitly stating that they will not allow a bill that includes the current ‘opt out’ public option to advance to a final up or down vote. Over at FireDogLake, they are suggesting that this situation means that Reid will ’sell out’ the public option. And my old friend Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo DC looked at rumors today that Senator Chuck Schumer of New York is already leading negotiations behind the scenes on the ‘trigger option’ for a government-backed health care program that Republican Senator Olympia Snowe has long been a proponent of:
“Since Leader Reid announced the opt-out public option would be included in the Senate bill, Senator Schumer has not approached anyone about compromises,” Fallon said in a statement to TPMDC. “He is fully behind the level playing field opt-out, which he himself helped advance.”
That’s a direct contradiction to the assertion in this post, by a Democratic aide, that Schumer recently approached Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) about a public option compromise. But it doesn’t address Landrieu’s contention, that Schumer is a point man in behind the scenes negotiations regarding a potential trigger compromise.
via Spokesman: Schumer’s Not Initiating Any Trigger Negotiations | TPMDC.
So, away we go. We’ll have another month of health care debate in the Senate, lengthy negotiations between the House and Senate conferences over the final product, and finally, at long last, perhaps, a bill that President Obama will sign. Maybe even in time for the anniversary of his inauguration.
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The fun has just begun.
It is becoming clearer who the enemy is.
There are some Americans left, all true Americans will resist this tyranny,senate thugs, white house thugs, or house of representative thugs…..the people still own this country,it is your duty as Americans to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic…
The issues will become clearer as Obama’s thugs drag your sons and daughters mothers and father from their homes….for the NEW crime of not buying health care from Barack Obama.
As ever, Andy, I enjoy reading your Glenn Beck fan fiction.
To correct your spurious claims about Obamacare sending people to jail, here’s how it works:
1. Obamacare mandates that all Americans who don’t have health care via their employer buy health insurance.
2. Failure to purchase health insurance results in a tax to cover the expenses you and other uninsured Americans rack up at the emergency room when you get sick/injured.
3. Failure to pay the tax results in civil penalties from the Internal Revenue Service – just like if you refuse to pay your income taxes now.
4. Repeated refusal to pay the IRS’s penalties results in jail time. It’s called being a tax cheat, and fortunately we live in a country where repeated refusal to pay one’s taxes results in jail sentences for the scofflaws in question.
***
Of course, there are some intervening factors here. Courts could find that the mandate is unconstitutional, and then no one who refuses to buy health insurance will ever go to jail. If health care reform passes, I’m sure this question will be taken up as quickly as possible by some tax protesting group or other.
But until then, don’t worry, Andy. Insure yourself and your family from health expenses, or choose to pay the tax instead and you will *never ever* go to jail.
In response to another comment. See in context »Moary Landrieu admits selling her vote….for $300 million.(from rollcall.com)
These two crackheads are political thugs, reid and landreiu…and the FBI should look into this…these are in your face daylight gangsters
of the highest degree…in fact…they make the Mafia look like boy scouts…..
Just curious, but have you ever tripped and fallen over while jumping at shadows? Or at least strained a muscle while reaching too far? Seems to me like you might be a person in great need of Health Care with these kinds of tendencies…
In response to another comment. See in context »Landreiu vote was bought for $300 million and you question the messenger?
The FBI should take both crackheads reid and Landreui into custody…and they would if we had an honest attorney general.
Who are the 6%, or 18,000,000 americans who thugboy reid says WON”T be covered by the health bill?
Michael,
Maybe you, Rick or someone else can clarify something I’m unclear of. At what point — if at all now — can the outcome again be threatened by filibuster? If the answer is never, as I had thought it was, then the threat of Lincoln, Nelson and Lieberman is meaningless. The bill can now pass with 51 votes in the Senate. But perhaps I’m wrong. Let’s assume this goes through Senate debate and is passed. That requires only a majority vote now, right? Then it goes to conference committee. Is the vote on a bill that comes out of conference committee open to filibuster? If not, the threats of the conservative Democrats is just so much hot air, no?
You rightly point out, Jerry, that the Senate is an insane asylum for the greatest cretins ever found by the mental health profession.
Last night’s vote was a vote to start debate on the Reid health care reform bill (which is, typically, attached to a completely unrelated piece of House legislation – the ‘Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009′ in this case). Prior to an up or down vote on the legislation, there has to be an intervening vote to cut of further debate on the legislation. That’s where the Lieberman/Nelson/Lincoln, and possibly Landrieu filibuster threat comes in.
In response to another comment. See in context »