The Senate has passed the final 60-vote threshold prior to passing their version of the health care reform bill. There will be a vote on final passage tomorrow morning but that will only require 51 votes. Over the recess we’ll be waiting for the House bill and the Senate bill to be reconciled in a Conference Committee. Once the Conference Committee creates a Conference Report, the Senate will need 60 votes one more time to bring the report to a vote. So, if Tom Coburn’s prayers come true, this bill could still die, but we’ll hope that God thinks about as highly of Mr. Coburn as we do.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I’m really curious about tomorrow’s vote. I know that it’s going to pass. Today was the final cloture and the simple majority should be simple by comparison. But I’m really wondering what the margin is going to be. Are all 60 Dems going to vote for final passage as well? It was always a complaint that the PO shouldn’t be held hostage by a procedural vote, and that ConservaDems could vote against final passage if they didn’t like it. Since there’s no PO, I wonder if any of them will vote against it anyways.
What kind of effect might that have on the conference committee? If HCR only passes the Senate with, say, 55 votes…does that make it harder to get improvements in? I would think it does.
I was wondering the same thing myself. I am curious to see if people like Lincoln, Landrieu or Begich vote against it.
Imagine if several progressive Senators, say Sanders, Rockefeller, Feingold, etc…vote AGAINST final passage of the Senate bill, to send a statement that they’re support isn’t assured unless the bill moves to the left in committee.
That would sure be something to see.
I highly doubt that will happen. But with Feingold, you never know.
You’ve got a better handle on the politics of things (I’m still fairly fresh in all this)…what sort of reaction would we see if they tried something like that? Do you think it would have the ‘desired’ effect, or just blow up in their faces?
It would blow up in their faces.
How?
Nah, Reid won’t hold the vote unless he knows it will pass. I have no clue what it would do to their future bargaining power. Snowe still gets attention, but the rules that apply to her may not apply to the left.
Well of course I didn’t mean to vote against it so it wouldn’t pass. Since there’s “room to spare” on the vote, progressives would have to wait until the very end, to make sure they didn’t keep it from moving out of the Senate and on to conference.
Tomorrow they only need a majority vote. With Biden presiding over the Senate (he’ll be there, too) they only need 50 votes to pass it. That means several Dems could vote against it and it could still get out of the Senate.
Should prove really interesting if/who will do so.
I could see Feingold making a statement about the pork projects that greased the skids on this. He casts votes like that all the time on appropriations bills. But, I can’t see him doing it over the public option or some other element of the bill. We have to face the truth, which is that the bill can only be as left as Ben Nelson is left, which is to say, we’re screwed. Stomping our feet isn’t going to change a thing. You want better outcomes? Get us a few more Dems in the Senate. Hodes, Carnahan, and Fisher ought to do it.
I’m certainly with you on that. I still hold the belief that if the Dems, particularly the grassroots (this doesn’t automatically mean the netroots) get motivated…we could be looking at a 2-4 seat pickup in the Senate in 2010. Even if they’re blue dogs, that would mean the 4-6 conservadems would have to at least compete for their compromises – which would help a great deal.
But that’s if we can get people motivated. I’m hoping the administration moves on Immigration reform, which will get some real vitriol from the right – should get some progressives angry. And repeal DADT/DOMA before or during the summer.
I’ll be down here in FL, busy working to get Grayson re-elected (neighboring district) and keep Kosmas in office…while scolding her a little, since she voted against HCR. It’s a slightly R district, but her reasoning was all Republican talking points. The Meeks/Crist/Rubio mess…well we’ll see where that heads in the coming months.
Did you here that Jane Hamsher is now teaming up with Grover Norquist to demand Rahm Emanuel’s resignation? She has become as batshit crazy as a combination of Michele Bachmann and Orly Taitz.
Boran2 just tipped me off. Wonderful.
Just how far down the line of presidential succession is the Secretary of State, anyways?
Let’s see. Isn’t Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) one of the major contributors on Jane’s FDL?
The Marcy Wheeler that has relentlessly exposed the multitude of Abramoff/Nordquist scandals. I wonder what Marcy has to say to this.
Just for the record, Booman, there’s a guy at dKos with actual, rather than imagined (as in Hamsher’s case), knowledge of the issue from his time working there.
Demand it or what? They’ll demand it again? Norquist will quit trying to downsize the government?
How about if I demand that the Senate pass a Medicare For All bill?
Yes, if we could just get rid of “batshit crazy” Hamsher and all those other pesky lefties, we could then move on to sensible mediocrity. Now that’s what I call change I can believe in.
I don’t get it. What’s wrong with fighting for a better healthcare plan? Because everyone in Booland is happy with what’s coming out of the Senate?
Or maybe everyone is confident that no matter how much the current Senate bill sucks that it will get better in reconciliation if we all just keep quiet and make nice with the folks on Capitol Hill?
Maybe everyone here thinks that Jane “Batshit Crazy” Hamsher is so powerful that she can disrupt the political process?
Or maybe Hamsher is just making too much noise and it’s distracting from the carolers. Huh?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with fighting for a better healthcare plan. I’m just not convinced that attacking Bernie Sanders with the threat of a primary and teaming up with “shrink government until its so small we can drown it in the bathtub” Norquist is an effective way to do it.
Seeing that Sanders is one of only a handful in the Senate who would be a concrete vote for single-payer healthcare I think he knows better than most that this bill isn’t great but has good things in it that can be improved.
I find Jane Hamsher to be mostly ridiculous right now. Nothing wrong with fighting as long as you have a coherent strategy aimed at the right people.
May not be effective. That means she’s batshit crazy because she may be ineffective?
Her website is threatening Bernie Sanders, Al Franken and St Russ Feingold, in addition to going after Rahm Emanuel with the help of Grover Norquist with charges that appear to be laughably false (which is great, I’d just said to myself the other day that I really missed Whitewater).
Yes, she’s batshit crazy. She’s been batshit crazy for a long time. I’m glad people are waking up to it finally.
Not to mention trying to throw Hadassah (sp?) Lieberman off the Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer research/fundraising. What do they hope to gain by this? How stupid.
And, of course, not to mention Blackface.
Not someone I want on my side, quite honestly.
she’s stopped even having a passing acquaintance with the truth.
Do you even know why they are demanding his resignation?
I don’t know. Because he’s Jewish? Is sure ain’t for some trumped up bullshit he didn’t do related to Freddie Mac.
I don’t know what’s so hard to understand about something like this:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=31694#comment-1500696
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/23/snowe-opts-out-votes-to-p_n_402220.html
So much for Snowe.
If there’s a God, I’m sure she is much more forgiving of Coburn than we would be. That’s why no one sings about US. 😉
How about Santa? What does Santa think about Coburn? How about the Easter Bunny, Allah, Zeus, and the blue guy with the elephant nose? What do they think about Coburn? And more important, are they talking?
Any chance, i.e. greater than a snowball in Hell, that the conference will restore the House’s funding mechanism and/or get rid of this damn 40% tax on Union health benefits?
if Obama agrees to make Nebraskans exempt from paying federal income tax. Or maybe a promise to appoint Lieberman to the supreme court when the next opening comes up.
Just some more idiocy…
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/23/vt-voters-to-bernie-sanders-stand-up-for-whats-right-or-
risk-losing-your-seat/
They’re calling for Sanders now?
Wow, and she calls other people “just a troll with a blog”?
Bernie Sanders, the socialist from Vermont isn’t left enough, and Grover is her new pal? Who would have ever thought that could happen?
I read the first few comments, pretty unanimous condemnation and ridicule of the post.
It’s kind of weird to observe this insanity that has come over some of the FDLers.
We’re having a little giggle over some of the comments. It’s like an alternate universe.
Like a cartoon…she ran so hard and fast to the left, she came out the other side, and ran right into a teabagger!
I didn’t get that at all. The overwhelming majority of commenters seem to agree with the post and condemn Sanders.
FDL is a seriously messed up place.
Me, I’d cross the street if I saw Norquist coming.
Nevertheless, is it CRAZY for Reid to try to get conservatives to vote for the bill?
I don’t get the outrage. Hamsher thinks the bill, as currently constructed, sucks. And it does. It’s an insurance policy for insurance companies at the working class’s expense, without anything to keep the costs in line.
Maybe it gets bailed out in conference, but I see the Senate bill as a way to lose a whole bunch of middle class voters from the Democratic fold for not much medical benefit. If it’s about the 30 million uncovered, how about the Dems just deal with that? It won’t pass? If the price of giving insurance to those who can’t afford it comes out of the pockets of those who can barely afford it while giving the rich folk in health insurance companies who are screwing everyone a pass, I suspect this bill will play into the hands of those who want to drive a wedge between the just-making-it and not-quite-making-it. Not the kind of class warfare Democrats should want to see.
I hope everyone who thinks that the healthcare bill coming out of the Senate really ends up being great is right. Because right now it’s got the scent of Bill Clinton’s NAFTA and GATT and at least those things had Republican fingerprints on them. This one is purely Democratic handiwork.
Also, how is it legal for the government to force you to buy a product from a private company? Isn’t the government taking money from you and giving it to a corporation illegal?
Oh, shit. It is! I better go dump my General Dynamics stock.
The government made you buy stock? Or did they just force you to send your money to them?
If the government taxes you and then buys something with tax money it’s perfectly legal.
But if the government says, “Mr. Machina, you must pay General Dynamics money,” how is that Constitutional?
It’s one thing for the government to say, “You must have car insurance to operate a motor vehicle on a public thoroughfare.” But how does the government say, “You must buy a product from a private company to operate your body in America.”
This was raised when mandates came up in the healthcare debate last year, and I’ve never heard anyone explain how it’s constitutional.
Any constitutional scholars here? Obviously, the government has the power to tax, but where does the government have the power to force people to buy private insurance? I don’t see it.
I knew Jane Hamsher was Orly Taitz long lost sister. The teabagger twins.