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Maj. Leader Reid must use reconciliation to pass a fix to the bill. AP Photo
If the health care reform bill was on the five yard line before it could now aptly be described as being on the one yard line. The bad news for Democrats is that the last yard can sometimes be the hardest to gain. Republicans, along with some Democrats, are working furiously to stop the bill passing and victory (a touchdown if you will) is still not certain for Democrats. Here is the latest updates on where the bill is.
(1) The Democrats in the House must first vote to pass the current bill which came out of the Senate. Today the House Democratic caucus met today with White House officials to go through the bill and plan to pass a "fix" to the bill soon after. Senator Reid officially has stated that the Senate Democrats do plan to use reconciliation to subsequently pass the fix to their bill.
(2) The House Democrats have decided not to adopt the stricter abortion language passed by the House in their bill. The current Senate bill bans public funding for abortion but the House bill goes even further than the Senate bill and current law. This means that House Democrats will have to get enough votes without the ardent anti-abortion Democrats in the House.
(3) House Democrats are said to be optimistic that they can get the vote to pass the Senate bill. They have a general map of how things will work and momentum on their side at the moment.
(4) Having said that some Democrats are getting nervous as no final deal was reached in the meeting of House members today. Some anticipated the leadership to emerge with the outline of a deal which would allow them to pass the Senate bill and the "fix" but no such agreement was announced.
(5) Perhaps most important the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that the Senate Democrats can not use reconciliation to pass the "fix" to the bill until the House passes the Senate bill and the President signs it into law. Some think this may make House Democrats worried as they would essentially have to trust Senate Democrats to pass the fix even after the Senate bill had already become law.
(6) Finally the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released un updated analysis of the Senate bill which still shows it saves money. Specifically the CBO projects the bill to save $118 billion over the first ten years and another $600 billion over the ten years after that.
The White House would like the House to vote for the Senate bill by March 18th. Right now it is still unclear if that deadline will be met. Most analysts believe that if the Democrats do not pass a bill by Easter that the bill will die as Republicans and health insurance lobbies would use the Easter break to rally against reform.
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Comments
If the democrats don't pass the bill by Easter, the bill will die because their constituents will let them have it when they dare to show their arrogant faces back home on their Easter break.
Ryan you have it all wrong. The ball is on the one yard line all right, just the wrong one. The republicans and a few patriotic democrats are desperately blocking trying to keep the quarterback (the US citizens) from getting sacked for a safety.
ACORN is SHUT DOWN in Ohio from ever more working to register voters through a plea agreement.
A judge threw out the ACORN suit against the 2 patriotic film makers in Baltimore.
A FOIA request by Judicial Watch ha documented that Obama shut down the Federal investigation into the criminal organization calling itself ACORN.
How many more months do you suppose the media is going to buy (or push) the BS that the health care bill is near the finish line?
Predestining conditions. Would Obama insure my wrecked car?
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