|
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2009/Senate/Maps/Dec20-s.html http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2009/Senate/Maps/Dec20-s.html
Update: Dec. 21
Permalink
By a vote of 60-40, the Senate
invoked cloture
to limit debate on the manager's amendment to the health-insurance bill at 1 A.M. this morning.
The amendent includes all the changes approved by the majority leader since the bill was introduced.
All 58 Democrats and 2 independents voted for it
and all 40 Republicans--including Olympia Snowe who had been courted for nearly a year--voted no.
Without the votes to block cloture, Republicans were
praying
that the snowstorm that hit D.C. would prevent at least one Democrat from making it to the Senate to vote.
Their prayers were not answered as all Democrats showed up and voted, including
the ailing 92-year-old Robert Byrd who is confined to a wheelchair.
After cloture has been invoked, according to Senate rules, debate continues for an additional 30 hours.
Majority leader Harry Reid is keeping the Senate
in session day and night debating although at night there will probably be only one Democrat present
(as acting presiding officer) and only one Republican present (speaking against the amendment and the bill
or reading the Bible or whatever he wants).
As low man on the Democratic totem pole, freshman Al Franken, who won a bitterly contested recount in
Minnesota this Spring, may do most of the presiding during the night listening to the Republican drone
on to the empty chamber.
A straight up-or-down vote on the amendment itself will be taken at 7 A.M. Tuesday. Only 51 votes
are needed to accept the amendment.
Senate Poised to Pass Health-Insurance Bill
Permalink
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) got his way on an amendment banning the use of federal funds
for insurance policies that cover abortion and has now
said
that he will vote for the bill.
What Nelson wanted and got was that any woman wanting abortion coverage who also got a federal subsidy
would have to write
two checks:
one for the base policy (subsidized) and one for the abortion coverage (not subsidized).
This scheme might deter a few women from getting abortion coverage but it is hard to see
how it will really reduce the number of abortions. Like so many senators, Nelson was just
grandstanding so he can claim he is pro-life with no real consequences to anyone.
He also got an agreement to have the entire additional cost of Medicaid in Nebraska covered by the federal government.
Maybe that was his real goal and the abortion noise was just cover? Such are the ways of Congress.
At this point, all 60 members of the Democratic caucus have
said they will vote for cloture. That doesn't mean the bill will become law, but it is
moving along.
Minority leader Mitch McConnell
called
the bill a "monstrosity." While the bill is 2000 pages long as currently formatted, in its
final format it will be 400 pages but much of it is relatively minor and hardly a monstrosity.
At its core, the federal government will pay $900 million in subsidies to private insurance
companies to have them insure 30 million people who otherwise could not afford health insurance. There
is no government run plan or even an expansion of Medicare for McConnell to get all steamed
up about. In truth, the Republicans were faced with a choice early on: work with the
Democrats and get a bill they liked or stonewall and try to hand Obama and the Democrats a
massive defeat. They chose the latter and it now looks like they will get nothing. The
former option was readily available in the form of the Wyden-Bennett bill which would have
allowed heath-insurance companies to operate nationally with the expectation that increased
private-sector competition would drive down prices.
In other words, rather than fight for reform based on a private-sector solution, which
Democrats would have grudgingly accepted, the Republicans put all their eggs in the "No!"
basket and probably will lose their gamble.
Click here for full story
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
empyrean_shroud's Friends Page
