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David M. Drucker - Roll Call
The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress' original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday. The Senate Parliamentarian's Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said. House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate's original health care bill.
Obamacare's Procedural Fraud on the American People
Brian Darling - The Foundry
The Health Care Nuclear Option is still the stated plan to get Obamacare to the President's desk. The latest wrinkle is designed to allow pro-life Democrats to vote for the Senate's taxpayer funded abortion language while still claiming they never voted for taxpayer funded abortions. Don't be fooled.
Senate Liberals Disses on Health Bill
Emily Pierce and David M. Drucker - Roll Call
Senate Democratic leaders are concerned about the amount of mischief their own Members could create if or when a health care reconciliation bill comes up for debate. And sources said some supporters of creating a public insurance option are privately worried that they will be asked to vote against the idea during debate on the bill, which could occur before March 26.
Health-Care Bill's Passage Faces New Hurdle, Republicans Say
Laura Litvan and Kristin Jensen - Bloomberg
Republicans said they won a parliamentary victory as they try to fight Democrats' efforts to pass legislation to overhaul the U.S. health-care system. Republicans said President Barack Obama has to sign a Senate health-care bill into law before the House and Senate can approve changes to it under a process called reconciliation. The Senate parliamentarian told Republicans that a reconciliation bill has to "make changes in law," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
If Democrats ignore health-care polls, midterms will be costly
Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Shoen - Washington Post
In "The March of Folly," Barbara Tuchman asked, "Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests?" Her assessment of self-deception -- "acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts" -- captures the conditions that are gripping President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership as they renew their efforts to enact health-care reform. Their blind persistence in the face of reality threatens to turn this political march of folly into an electoral rout in November.
Democratic candidates distance themselves from healthcare reform
Aaron Blake - The Hill
Hardly any Democrat running for Congress seems to want to talk about healthcare. Of the 26 leading Democratic House candidates contacted by The Hill, only one would commit to voting for the Senate healthcare bill if and when it comes to the House floor. Out of the more than two dozen Democratic challengers and open-seat House candidates, only 10 commented for this story. Eight outright declined to comment.
Bernie Sanders: I'm Prepared To Introduce Public Option Amendment
Greg Sargent - The Plum Line
The public option just might get its straight up-or-down vote after all. Senator Bernie Sanders, in a brief interview in the Capitol just now, confirmed to me that he's willing to commit to introducing an amendment that would add the public option to the Senate bill's reconciliation fix.
Parliamentarian's ruling deals blow to healthcare reform chances
Alexander Bolton - The Hill
The Senate parliamentarian has delivered a blow to Democrats by ruling President Barack Obama must sign the broader Senate healthcare legislation before the upper chamber can take up changes demanded by the House. The ruling means House Democrats would have to rely on a good-faith promise that senators will pass the changes after the healthcare bill is signed into law, a difficult prospect at a time when lower-chamber lawmakers have grown distrustful of their Senate counterparts.
Democrats Struggle to Finish Health Bill
Robert Pear - New York Times
House and Senate Democratic leaders struggled Thursday to stitch together pieces of a final health care bill as rank-and-file Democrats demanded more information about the contents of the bill and its cost. Leaving a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, lawmakers said they had received few details about what would be in the legislation, on which they may be asked to vote in the next week or two.
Pass It First, Then Amend It
Yuval Levin - NRO's The Corner
It's fair to say this ruling from the Senate parliamentarian today will put a serious damper on the Democrats' "dual bill" approach to passing their health-care plan. Democratic leaders should be asking themselves just how they have gotten to the point that their strategy is to amend a law that doesn't exist yet by passing a bill without voting on it. Surely it's time to start over.
Friday's Starting Lineup
Reid Wilson - Hotline On Call
ALAN FRUMIN: He's a name few know, but Frumin may become world famous by the end of this seemingly interminable health care debate. Frumin is the Senate parliamentarian, someone with rarely-used but very influential power. And yesterday, he threw Dems for a loop, ruling that Pres. Obama must sign health care legislation before the Senate can take up a bill providing legislative fixes via reconciliation.
Senate parliamentarian rules that bill must pass before reconciliation can be used
Ezra Klein - Washington Post
The thinkable has happened, and the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the president must sign the health-care reform bill before the House and Senate can act on a reconciliation package. In the Democrats' Senate Caucus meeting today, Kent Conrad apparently argued that this left the Democrats in an even stronger moral position. The reconciliation rider fixes unpopular elements of the health-care bill: the Nebraska deal, the Florida deal, the excise tax and so forth.
Dem Rep. Lynn Woosley: House May Pass Senate Bill Without Recorded Vote
Rick Klein - ABC's The Note
ABC News' Rick Klein reports: As House Democrats press for final passage of a health care bill, a legislative scenario has emerged whereby the House wouldn't have to take a formal roll call vote to endorse the Senate version of the legislation. Instead, the House would craft a special piece of legislation declaring the Senate bill to have been passed by the House when the House approves its package of "fixes" under the budget reconciliation process. That would spare House members of the perception of endorsing politically explosive Senate deals such as the "Cornhusker Kickback."
White House, Democrats close in on health bill
Associated Press
House Democratic leaders abandoned a long struggle to appease the most ardent abortion opponents in their ranks, gambling Thursday that they can secure the support for President Barack Obama's sweeping health care legislation with showdown votes looming next week. In doing so, they are all but counting out a small but potentially decisive group whose views on abortion coverage have become the principal hang-up for Democrats fighting to achieve the biggest change in American health care in generations. Congressional leaders are hoping they can find enough support from other wavering Democrats to pass legislation that only cleared the House by five votes in an earlier incarnation.
Health care ad spending grows; will it matter?
Chris Cillizza - Washington Post's The Fix
The air wars over health care, into which both sides have already poured more than $200 million, are in full swing again. The latest evidence? American Future Fund, a conservative group, is spending $500,000 bashing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter for their expressed support for using reconciliation to pass elements of the health care bill.
Democrats move toward grouping health reform with student-aid bill
Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery - Washington Post
Democratic leaders said Thursday that they were increasingly inclined to release a final health-care bill that could accomplish two of President Obama's top domestic priorities: guaranteeing coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans and vastly expanding federal aid for college students. Both proposals, stuck in Congress for nearly a year, are gaining new momentum as Democrats contemplate facing voters in November without having delivered on any of Obama's major policy objectives.
Health Scare: Sen. Reid, Democrats Face Late Health Overhaul Hurdles
Jake Tapper - ABC News
A key Democratic leader faces a personal health care crisis of his own while the party makes a zero-hour push to pass health care overhaul legislation. The wife and daughter of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., are recovering from a car accident Thursday that left the women hospitalized in serious condition. Reid's wife, Landra, suffered a broken nose, back and neck. Daughter Lana Reid Barringer, 48, has a neck injury and facial lacerations. Both are "conscious, can feel their extremities and, according to doctors, their injuries are non-life threatening," a Reid spokesman said.
Capuano Suggests He's Leaning No On Health Care
Brian Beutler - TPMDC
After Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election in his home state, Rep. Mike Capuano (D-MA) sounded pretty fatalistic about health care reform. Nearly two months later, not much has changed. In an email to supporters today, Capuano lays out a number of major complaints with both the process and the substance of the final health care reform push.
How Republicans Can Stop The Health Care Bill in 3 Steps
Thomas Del Beccaro - Andrew Breitbart's Big Government
The stakes in the health care debate continue to climb. For the Democrats, they truly are in between a self- imposed Barack and a hard place. If they produce a health care bill that Obama signs over the objections of the American people, they risk losing 55 or more House seats and 8-10 Senate seats. If they don't push through a bill, they will have angered yet another part of their base.
'Dramatic' developments in health care push
NECN
There have been "dramatic" developments in closed-door meetings on health care reform since the start of the day Thursday, sources told ABC News. Still, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is not making guarantees, especially when it comes to President Barack Obama's March 18th deadline. "We will take up the bill when we're ready to take up the bill," Speaker Pelosi said.
Why Rush Limbaugh would go to Costa Rica if Obama's healthcare plan passes
Chrissie Long - The Christian Science Monitor
Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said this week he'd go to Costa Rica for medical treatment if Congress passes proposed reforms to the US healthcare system. That might sound like an unusual choice, since this is a country with one of the longest standing socialized healthcare systems on the planet. Everyone here (including resident foreigner), are required to pay into the government-run health system, whether they use it or not. But Limbaugh's choice may also serve to advertise what many Americans traveling here for medical treatment already know: Costa Rica is a fabulous place for medical tourism.
Health care reform battle: Democrats opt to ignore abortion foes
Associated Press
House Democratic leaders are giving up on seeking compromise with anti-abortion foes in their ranks and will try to pass health care legislation without those votes. The anti-abortion Democrats' objections to the bill has become the principal hangup in effors to resolve differences within the party and achieve the biggest change in health care in generations. Congressional leaders are hoping they can find enough support from other wavering Democrats to pass legislation that only cleared the House by five votes in an earlier version.
| Latest Polling |
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Rasmussen Reports March 9, 2010 "Eighty-one percent (81%) believe it is at least somewhat likely that the health care reform plan will cost more than official estimates." |