If the Senate passes a bill without a public option, the reason for that will be that the votes are not present in the Senate to pass it with one. Harry Reid and the top Democratic leadership want a public option, and have clearly been pushing hard to get it into the legislation. But the votes just do not appear to be there. They have never have been. Will the conference committee return a final bill with a public option even if they know it cannot pass the Senate? What is more likely is that the conference committee returns a bill without one, and puts the burden of the decision on the liberals in the House. Then the question becomes: Will the House pass a final bill without a public option? For President Obama's sake, they probably will. The final result is likely to be the passage of a substantially watered down bill, without a public option, either very late this year or very early next year. Either that, or the Democrats will pass nothing, which is not an impossibility by any means. Once again, passing this bill in the House was supposed to be easy, but it turned out to be a real nail-biter. And that was after watering down the public option, and passing the Stupak Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortions through either public or private insurance plans. Passing this in the Senate was always expected to be hard, but has actually been made harder than expected by the efforts of Harry Reid. That was actually the easy part in the House yesterday. Now the hard work really begins.
exactly. basically every other country, we could possibly compare ourselves to, does it better than us. in a more equitable, efficient, quantifiably better way.
statement released by President Obama this morring -- Tonight, in an historic vote, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would finally make real the promise of quality, affordable health care for the American people. The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a piece of legislation that will provide stability and security for Americans who have insurance; quality affordable options for those who don't; and bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the government while strengthening the financial health of Medicare. And it is legislation that is fully paid for and will reduce our long-term federal deficit. Thanks to the hard work of the House, we are just two steps away from achieving health insurance reform in America. Now the United States Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation. I am absolutely confident it will, and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year. Mo it looks like the president has more confidence than you do regarding the senate.
Again, you're missing the point. We already know there are more than 50 votes for the public option in the Senate. The question is whether they have 60. In the 2nd vote, they only need 50. So a public option CAN pass the Senate after the conference committee - there's no doubt about that. The only part in doubt right now is whether it can pass the initial Senate vote.
I think it is safe to say that you have more confidence in President Obama and his public statements than I do. If you personally choose to put significant stock into that statement, that is up to you. It just sounds like so much political yammering to me.
The reconciliation procedure does not work that way. It only applies to some aspects of the bill, but not to others. It is unlikely that the Dems will try to use this procedure, despite their repeated threats to do so. Doing that will just cause a full melt-down in the Senate. Considering the polls on the Democratic healthcare reform plan overall (which are running strongly against), the results of the elections on Tuesday, and the parliamentary complications and difficulties of using the reconciliation approach, this is probably not a feasible option for the Democrats at this time. The Democrats are going to have to play by the rules to get this done, however offensive that idea may be to them and to their supporters.
unfortunately Mo is correct here Just look at what happened to Bush and republicans when they used reconciliation to ram two tax cuts down America's throat.
Reconciliation is a completely different thing than the Senate-House conference committee - they are totally unrelated ideas. The former is controversial and is unlikely to be used. The latter is normal and uncontroversial. Let's presume the Senate bill doesn't have a public option, while the House bill does. The merged bill either has to or doesn't - one chamber of Congress will lose out. There's nothing surprising or controversial about the Senate being that side. The merged bill goes back to both houses for an up-or-down vote, so it only needs 50 votes to pass. Reconciliation is a Senate-only procedure that involves reclassifying the bill as a budget bill, which then can't be filibustered. No one is talking about doing that. If they did, they would certainly be controversial and cause a meltdown.
It only needs 50 votes to pass, but it takes 60 votes to win cloture in order to be voted on. That is where the bottleneck is in the Senate.
Are you not paying attention? The senate version could pass without the PO and then it could be inserted during conference. Then, afterwards pass with a simple majority.
I thought the public option was dead after the teabaggers and the millions and bilillions and trillions of 9-12 movement people killed it back in August by screaming about hitler at town halls? At least that is what the liberal media told me.
Does any website have the numbers or estimates on the house bill for the public option premiums or the tax for not having coverage?
No, but the insurance lobby/GOP will try their hardest to make it as expensive as possible so that it will fail and expensive private insurance can keep up their premiums and wealthy investors and CEO's can make big bucks off of people's need for health insurance.
No, but the insurance lobby/GOP will try their hardest to make it as expensive as possible so that it will fail and expensive private insurance can keep up their premiums and wealthy investors and CEO's can make big bucks off of people's need for health insurance. Cheer up, Casey, no matter how bad the GOP?insurance lobby makes the public option it can be reformed to make it very affordable in future years once folks realize that the fears unleashed by conservatives were groundless. You, too will have your family finances improved as your increased taxes (if any) plus your reduced health insurance premiums will be less than your private insurance premiums alone would have been. You will have more money in your pocket and you will eventually be free to do such things as quit your present job and be insured while trying to start a business, if you ever become so inclined.
Even if the public option is re-inserted in conference, the final bill still must pass cloture in the Senate, which is the vote to end the debate, before the actual vote can take place. Cloture requires 60 votes. If cloture is invoked, then the debate is ended, and the final post-conference bill is then voted on. That final (post-cloture) vote only requires a simple majority. But you have to get 60 votes to stop the debate prior to conducting the final vote on the bill.
I understand completely what you are arguing. I just think that your perceptions of how many people live does not reflect reality. Thew reality is that most families have to have two incomes just to make ends meet. That, in most cases, will necessitate two cars. You pointed to $800.00 a month for a house payment to be excessive. The reality is that it is difficult to rent an apartment for a family for less than that, let alone a house. You talk about people ""skipping out" on hospital bills. This indicates that they had the means to pay and simply did not pay. This could not be further from the truth. For many people, who are trying to feed their families and take care of their obligations, the hospital bills (which were unforeseen) and simply so large that they will NEVER be able to pay them. It must be a nice world for you where you can deposit people neatly into little boxes and mentally construct a world where people who cannot afford to pay their large hospital bills are just lazy or irresponsible. Your belief to the contrary is sad, misguided, uninformed and repugnant.
not what i meant. it should have been pretty obvious. which is why they should have had coverage. Saying you have to have 2 cars is not always true. It is MUCH NICER to have them but need and nice are far. No one would be homeless or go hungry and have two cars right? Why? because having shelter and food are placed as higher priorities. Where did I say any of this? I never said any of this. I said people have been too stupid to understand how important it is. This is basically akin to saying americans spend too much money on frivolous things. My point, which you still don't understand, is that people do not put enough financial emphasis on buying coverage. as is your obvious bitterness towards anyone and ability to read. You are putting some crazy argument out there like it is mine. It isn't.
