Health Care Vote - Health Care whip count - Health Care vote tally - Health Care bill

Health Care Vote - Health Care whip count - Health Care vote tally - Health Care bill



Politico and the New York Times both have long stories on the circuitous route that health care reform has taken to get to this point.

Both paint Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the key figure demanding that the White House and Congress not give up comprehensive reform bill even after the party was rocked by Republican Scott Brown winning Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

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During a mid-February conference call with top House Democrats, Pelosi made it clear she would accept nothing short of a big-bang health care push – dismissing the White House chief of staff as an “incrementalist.”

Pelosi even coined a term to describe Emanuel’s scaled-down approach: “Kiddie Care,” according to a person privy to the call.

Pelosi’s remark was more than just a diss. It sent a clear signal to House leadership that Pelosi wouldn’t compromise – and it coincided with Obama’s own decision to renew his push for an all-encompassing bill after weeks of confusion and discussion.






A series of last-minute flare-ups threatened to slow the Democrats' march to passage, after more than a year of grueling effort and a turbulent debate that has left the country deeply divided.

The most intense focus was on a small group of Democrats concerned that abortion funding restrictions in the legislation do not go far enough. Determined to avoid votes on such a charged issue, Democratic leaders raised the possibility of an executive order from Obama that reaffirms existing federal law barring taxpayer funded abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
House Democratic leaders abandoned a much-challenged procedure for passing the legislation after an outcry from Republicans and protest from some of their members. According to the new plan, the House will vote separately on the health care bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve as well as a package of changes.

The Senate bill would then go to Obama for his signature, the companion fix-it measure to the Senate, which hopes to pass it within the week under a procedure called reconciliation that requires only 50 votes in the 100-member body.

The parliamentary maneuvers became necessary after January's special election in Massachusetts when a Republican won the seat held for decades by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a champion of health care reform. That deprived the Democrats of their 60-vote Senate supermajority required to block Republican legislative delaying maneuvers.

The 10-year, $940 billion measure represents the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in the 1960s to provide government-funded health care coverage to the elderly and poor.




CNN's Ed Henry reported that Bill Clinton was late to a speaking engagement on Saturday night because he had been enlisted by the White House to carry out some last-minute lobbying for the health care bill to wavering Democrats.




source: huffingtonpost.com