Health care foes 11 votes shy of defeating bill

[jack sommerset]

Washington (CNN) -- Five more House Democrats said Tuesday that they will vote against Senate health care legislation, which puts opponents of reform just 11 votes shy of the 216 needed to prevent President Obama from scoring a major victory on his top domestic priority.

An ongoing CNN analysis shows that opposition in the House to the Senate health care plan has reached 205 members.

A total of 27 House Democrats, including nine who supported the House plan in November, have indicated that they would join a unified Republican caucus in opposing the Senate plan, which passed in that chamber December 24 with the minimum required 60 votes.

Nonetheless, House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut said Monday after a meeting with rank-and-file Democrats that "the votes are there" to pass the health care bill.

Among at least 27 Democrats who will vote against the bill is Rep. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, who confirmed his opposition Monday.

"Health care reform is needed, but the bill before us is too expensive, does not adequately address rising medical costs and skyrocketing insurance premiums, and tries to do too much too soon," McIntyre said in a written statement. "We simply cannot afford to create a new federal bureaucracy that costs nearly $1 trillion when our national debt is $12 trillion and there is no plan in place to address it. I will not vote for it."

Proponents of the health care plan need 216 votes to pass the Senate measure. No Republicans have indicated that they will vote for the bill, which means Democratic leaders must rely solely on votes from their own members. Democrats hold 253 House seats.

Of the 39 Democrats who voted against the House plan in November, 17 have indicated that they will vote against the Senate plan as written, 11 remain uncommitted, and nine did not return repeated calls for comment.

One member, Parker Griffith of Alabama, became a Republican in December. An additional member, Rep. Eric Massa of New York, resigned his seat last week.

Two top Republican vote-counters, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, released a memo last week saying that a relatively small number of Democrats hold a tremendous amount of sway on the issue.

"We believe House passage of the Senate's health care bill will ultimately be decided by the 37 remaining House Democrats who voted NO to a government takeover last November, and the ... 21 House Democrats who originally voted YES, but may now be on the fence," they wrote.

CNN contacted a number of House Democrats who voted in favor of the November House bill and who also represent conservative or competitive districts. Of those, eight -- Reps. Michael Arcuri of New York, Marion Berry of Arkansas, Tim Bishop of New York, Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, Daniel Lipinski of Illinois, Jerry Costello of Illinois, Nick Rahall II of West Virginia and Bart Stupak of Michigan -- said they would vote against the Senate bill as written but would consider supporting it with significant changes. Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, who also supported the House plan, said he would vote against the Senate bill outright.

Stupak leads a coalition of conservative Democrats who may play a key role in the health care vote calculus. These lawmakers favor modifying the Senate health care bill to include an amendment from Stupak that will further restrict ways abortions can be funded. During the House health care overhaul debate, 64 Democrats voted in favor of the Stupak amendment.

The Michigan congressman had been negotiating with House Democratic leaders to address the abortion issue, but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said last week that those negotiations had ended.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, who recently discussed his concerns over the abortion issue with Stupak, said Monday night: "If they brought the bill down, they're not stopping any abortions. They are stopping millions of people from getting health insurance."

Waxman's committee was one of several to review the House plan last year.

House Democratic leaders also may try to help their members by allowing them to avoid a direct vote on the Senate bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may call for a vote on a rule that would simply "deem" the Senate bill passed. The House then would proceed to a separate vote on the more popular changes to the Senate bill.

Modifying the Senate bill would require use of a parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation, which allows a measure to pass the Senate with a simple majority vote of 51, rather than the 60 votes needed to block a filibuster. However, Senate rules allow the passing of a reconciliation bill only after the underlying bill has been signed into law.

Several House members who oppose the bill as written are skeptical that the Senate will address their concerns in a reconciliation package once the measure has been signed into law.

"From the beginning, Congressman Arcuri has been opposed to the Senate bill," a spokesman said in a statement. "If there are so-called guaranteed fixes from the Senate through the reconciliation process, Congressman Arcuri would carefully review these changes by the Senate and would need some way to ensure that their guarantees would absolutely be included in a final bill. As with any piece of legislation, he would review all proposed changes before casting his vote."

Pelosi and House Majority Whip James Clyburn have said in recent days that they will have enough votes when the measure comes up. But Clyburn said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that they still lacked the votes to secure a victory.

"No, we don't have them as of this morning, but we've been working this thing all weekend," he said.

Massive advertising campaigns both for and against reform may be responsible for the high volume of phone calls flooding Democratic House offices.

"The House phone system is overloaded due to an unprecedented amount of calls attributed to the significant interest in the health care bill," a House Administration Committee spokesman said Tuesday. CNN received a busy signal at least once at nearly every House office it called this week.

[exstatic]

You realize, don't you, that whatever party is in power gets the votes they need, and then allows members to vote against for political cover, don't you?

[nkdlunch]

that's a lotta votes

[George Gervin's Afro]

You realize, don't you, that whatever party is in power gets the votes they need, and then allows members to vote against for political cover, don't you?

jack was born this year. either that or he is stupid.

[ElNono]

Kucinich Switches Vote on Health Care (http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/kucinich-switches-vote-on-health-care/?hp)
By JEFF ZELENY AND ROBERT PEAR

Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, said today that he plans to support the health care bill when it comes up for a vote this week. He becomes the first Democrat to publicly disclose his intention to switch from a no to a yes vote (http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/kucinich-to-announce-his-position-on-health-care/) on the legislation.

“I’ve decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation,” Mr. Kucinich said at a morning news conference in the Capitol. “If my vote is to be counted, let it count now for passage of the bill, hopefully in the direction of comprehensive health care reform.”

Mr. Kucinich said he was “quite aware of the historic fight” underway and decided to drop his opposition that the bill did not go far enough. He said, “I believe health care is a civil right.”

In an interview five days ago, Mr. Kucinich said he could not support the legislation (http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/a-national-measure-inextricably-enmeshed-with-local-interests/) and dismissed suggestions that his vote would derail the Democratic health care agenda. But since then, the congressman has come under extraordinary pressure from groups across the Democratic spectrum, including Moveon.org, which encouraged him to support the bill.

He said he still did not think the legislation went far enough — he has long advocated a single-payer system — but said his objections should not stand in the way of the bill.

“In the past week it’s become clear that the vote on the final health bill will be very close,” Mr. Kucinich said. “I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I’m quite aware of the historic fight, which has lasted the last century.”


He added: “The president’s visit to my district on Monday underscores the urgency of this vote.”

In a private conversation aboard Air Force One, en route to Ohio on Monday, President Obama pressed Mr. Kucinich for his support for the bill. The White House did not know what the congressman had decided until earlier today, when his aides advised administration officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of his plans.

While supporting the Senate bill, Mr. Kucinich said he did not like the procedure that might be used to pass it without an up-or-down vote in the House.

“I don’t like much of anything about this process,’’ Mr. Kucinich said.

Explaining factors he had considered in making his decision, Mr. Kucinich said, “We have to be very careful that the potential of President Obama’s presidency not be destroyed by this debate.’’

Mr. Kucinich said he would vote for the Senate bill even though he believed it was seriously flawed.

“Something is better than nothing — that’s what I keep hearing from my constituents,’’ Mr. Kucinich said.

The congressman said he would keep working for a government-financed single-payer health care system.

“I don’t like this bill,’’ Mr. Kucinich said. “But I made a decision to support it in the hope that we can move toward a more comprehensive approach.’’

Mr. Kucinich said he had not received anything from Congressional leaders or the White House in return for his support.

“There was no Nebraska or Louisiana type deal,’’ Mr. Kucinich said, referring to states that received extra Medicaid money in the Senate bill.

Mr. Kucinich’s support of the health care legislation gives Ms. Pelosi a bit of breathing room as she searches for 216 votes needed to pass the bill (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/16/us/politics/20100316-health-care-dems.html), in a vote that may be taken at the end of the week. But it does not bring a close to the vote-counting efforts that are continuing on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are still trying to persuade other undecided lawmakers to support the measure.

[coyotes_geek]

I wonder what it took to buy him off.

[coyotes_geek]

"I don’t like this bill,’’ Mr. Kucinich said. “But I made a decision to support it in the hope that we can move toward a more comprehensive approach.’’

So, starting over = bad, but voting for a bill you don't like on the "hope" that you can "change" it later = good. Yeah that makes sense.

[Wild Cobra]

I wonder what it took to buy him off.
Me too.

Everybody... Time to watch Fox News to find out. They are likely the only ones to report the buy-off.

[in2deep]

Obama probably promised them 1000 virgins for each in the afterlife

[Oh, Gee!!]

Everybody... Time to watch Fox News to find out. They are likely the only ones to report the buy-off.

actually, it won't be a report per se. more than likely it will begin with a provocative question such as "Was Kuchinich paid off by Obama?" Then, Glenn Beck will say something like "I am not saying he was paid off, but a lot of people sure are curious as to his complete 180 degree about-face. If he wasn't paid-off, then why doesn't call me on my cell phone in the next three seconds to tell me--nay, the fine people of this great republic--that he is voting this way of his own accord. In fact, we have his number displayed here, and I'm calling on all of you out there in 'real' America to flood his phone line demanding the truth."

[Wild Cobra]

actually, it won't be a report per se. more than likely it will begin with a provocative question such as "Was Kuchinich paid off by Obama?" Then, Glenn Beck will say something like "I am not saying he was paid off, but a lot of people sure are curious as to his complete 180 degree about-face. If he wasn't paid-off, then why doesn't call me on my cell phone in the next three seconds to tell me--nay, the fine people of this great republic--that he is voting this way of his own accord. In fact, we have his number displayed here, and I'm calling on all of you out there in 'real' America to flood his phone line demanding the truth."
Well, however it's reported, do you think CNN, MSNBC, etc. will want to break that news?

[Oh, Gee!!]

Well, however it's reported, do you think CNN, MSNBC, etc. will want to break that news?

your suspicions are not newsworthy, douche.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Everybody... Time to watch Fox News to find out. They are likely the only ones to report the buy-off.

This is so mindbogglingly stupid and sad.

[Yonivore]

I wonder what it took to buy him off.
I think it was the only thing that would have caused Kucinich to change his mind. Obama told him the truth.

[ElNono]

Well, however it's reported, do you think CNN, MSNBC, etc. will want to break that news?

The NY Times did...

[DMX7]

Grandama's not shovel ready!!!

[Mr. Peabody]

actually, it won't be a report per se. more than likely it will begin with a provocative question such as "Was Kuchinich paid off by Obama?" Then, Glenn Beck will say something like "I am not saying he was paid off, but a lot of people sure are curious as to his complete 180 degree about-face. If he wasn't paid-off, then why doesn't call me on my cell phone in the next three seconds to tell me--nay, the fine people of this great republic--that he is voting this way of his own accord. In fact, we have his number displayed here, and I'm calling on all of you out there in 'real' America to flood his phone line demanding the truth."

:toast

You should give up your day job and become a newswriter for Fox News.

[Yonivore]

I don't think Kucinich was "paid off."

He may be a socialist nut job but, I don't think Kucinich is a liar and he claims Obama didn't offer him anything in exchange for his voting in favor of Obamacare.

[Winehole23]

I don't think Kucinich was "paid off."What's your theory, then?

[boutons_deux]

"a decision to support it in the hope that we can move toward a more comprehensive approach"

Easy assumption is that MN told DK where MN is going next on health care reform, ie, which is where DK wants to go, strong public option, single-buyer/single-payer, hard-ass competition to shrivel the for-profit insurance companies into insignificance.

[boutons_deux]

pussyeater's head explodes, as a black man in pussyeater's White House "take over health care":


CBO’s Health Care Report Is Very Good News for Reform Advocates


No more excuses. This week, a variety of wavering House Democrats that they wouldn’t make up their minds on health care reform until they got the final score on the package from the Congressional Budget Office.

It took longer than expected, but the CBO has weighed in. Democrats looking for an encouraging score should be thrilled.

A Democratic source provides TPM with the CBO’s final numbers on the health care reform bill — the composite analysis of the Senate health care bill as amended by a soon-to-be-released reconciliation bill, which makes a number of amendments. The findings, as expected, keep the bill in line with the Senate bill’s stand alone score:

The bill would reduce the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years, and potentially by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years (though CBO always warns that projections into the second decade are extremely unpredictable).


The legislation is fully paid for, reduces the deficit in this decade, and even more in the next decade. It will bring coverage to 32 million Americans — slightly better than the earlier estimate — and extend Medicare solvency by at least 9 years while closing the prescription drug “donut hole.”

Generally, when a report like this comes out, both parties find specific points to suggest that the score helps their side, not the other. But a report like this one should prove exceedingly difficult for Republicans to spin. If I had to guess, the GOP will talk up the overall price tag — it’s a 10-year, $940 billion package — because it slightly exceeds the $900 billion ceiling originally talked about.

But for anyone serious about the substance, condemning health care reform over a $4 billion-a-year difference is pretty silly.


By any reasonable measure, this is a very strong CBO score, which should push some on-the-fence Democrats off the fence and into the “yes” column. No more “wait and see”; no more excuses. This is a reform package that works, and does exactly what these Democratic holdouts say they want.

And with this, the clock starts on the final vote. If the leadership can get 216 votes together, House members will decide the fate of health care reform on Sunday morning — 72 hours from now.

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/18/cbos-health-care-report-is-very-good-news-for-reform-advocates/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet

[Wild Cobra]

pussyeater's head explodes, as a black man in pussyeater's White House "take over health care":
What's your problem with "pussy eaters?"

Do you prefer Philadelphia freedom?

LqnDqrL5Y58

[jack sommerset]

What's your problem with "pussy eaters?"

Do you prefer Philadelphia freedom?

LqnDqrL5Y58

I eat the pussy,alot.

[coyotes_geek]

[B] The bill would reduce the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years

Ah yes. Let the people rejoice. For after their government is done taking another trillion dollars away from them there will be a little something left over for the defecit.

[greyforest]

Money is currently flowing in to the coffers of bribed democrats

[George Gervin's Afro]

Money is currently flowing in to the coffers of bribed democrats. I know this has gone on since the beginning of our republic but I am going to pretend it just started so I can bitch about Obama

[greyforest]

when did i bitch about obama? lol this subforum is terrible

[boutons_deux]

Money is currently flowing in to the coffers of bribed democrats

The corps and capitalists know they already own the "business friendly" Repugs (eg, Boner is telling the ABA lobbyists to keep fighting against all regulation of the financial sector), who are in the minority in both chambers, so they are pouring in the 100 of $Ms to buy Dems. duh.

[jack sommerset]

Dems need two more votes. 1 more after 10 central.

Boutons, are you Spursdynasty?

[jack sommerset]

Oh brother, the latest flip vote is laying it on hardcore. Down to 1 vote.

[BRHornet45]

lol its hilarious, yet pathetic watching these Democrats sellout. many of the ones who originally said that they were voting no on the bill are holding out until the last couple of days in order to receive a sweetheart deal.

[George Gervin's Afro]

lol its hilarious, yet pathetic watching these Democrats sellout. many of the ones who originally said that they were voting no on the bill are holding out until the last couple of days in order to receive a sweetheart deal.

you mean sweetheart deals that go on all of the time? or are you playing dumb again?

[EVAY]

lol its hilarious, yet pathetic watching these Democrats sellout. many of the ones who originally said that they were voting no on the bill are holding out until the last couple of days in order to receive a sweetheart deal.

Isn't that the American way?

[EmptyMan]

Politicians cannot sell out.



They are politicians.

[EmptyMan]

you mean sweetheart deals that go on all of the time? or are you playing dumb again?

Yeah, it's just healthcare.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Yeah, it's just healthcare.

these deals have been going on for generations so stop acting like this Congress invented it.

[boutons_deux]

Why Democrats Are Fighting for a Republican Health Plan

Friday 19 March 2010

by: E.J. Dionne Jr., Op-Ed

Washington - Here is the ultimate paradox of the Great Health Care Showdown: Congress will divide along partisan lines to pass a Republican version of health care reform, and Republicans will vote against it.

Yes, Democrats have rallied behind a bill that Republicans -- or at least large numbers of them -- should love. It is built on a series of principles that Republicans espoused for years.

Republicans have said that they do not want to destroy the private insurance market. This bill not only preserves that market but strengthens it by bringing in 32 million new customers. The plan before Congress does not call for a government "takeover" of health care. It provides subsidies so more people can buy private insurance.

Republicans always say they are against "socialized medicine." Not only is this bill nothing like a "single-payer" health system along Canadian or British lines. It doesn't even include the "public option" that would have allowed people voluntarily to buy their insurance from the government. The single-payer idea fell by the wayside long ago, and supporters of the public option -- sadly, from my point of view -- lost out last December.

They'll be back, of course. The newly pragmatic Rep. Dennis Kucinich was right to say that this is just the first step in a long process. We will see if this market-based system works. If it doesn't, single-payer plans and public options will look more attractive.

Republican reform advocates have long called for a better insurance market. Our current system provides individuals with little market power in the purchase of health insurance. As a result, they typically pay exorbitant premiums. The new insurance exchanges will pool individuals together and give them a fighting chance at a fair shake.

Republicans now say they hate the mandate that requires everyone to buy insurance. But an individual mandate was hailed as a form of "personal responsibility" by no less a conservative Republican than Mitt Romney. He was proud of the mandate, and also proud of the insurance exchange idea, known in Massachusetts as "The Health Connector" (the idea itself came from the conservative Heritage foundation). Romney had a right to be proud. As governor of Massachusetts in 2006, he signed a bill that is the closest thing there is to a model for what the Democrats are proposing.

Don't believe me on this? On The Wall Street Journal's opinion page earlier this week, Grace-Marie Turner -- criticizing Romney from the right, it should be said -- noted the startling similarities between the plan he approved and the one President Obama is fighting for.

"Both have an individual mandate requiring most residents to have health insurance or pay a penalty," she wrote. "Most businesses are required to participate or pay a fine. Both rely on government-designed purchasing exchanges that also provide a platform to control private health insurance. Many of the uninsured are covered through Medicaid expansion and others receive subsidies for highly prescriptive policies. And the apparatus requires a plethora of new government boards and agencies."

She added: "While it's true that the liberal Massachusetts Legislature did turn Mr. Romney's plan to the left, his claims that his plan is 'entirely different' will not stand up to the intense scrutiny of a presidential campaign, especially a primary challenge."

What does it tell us that Republicans are now opposing a bill rooted in so many of their own principles? Why has it fallen to Democrats to push the thing through?

The obvious lesson is that the balance of opinion in the Republican Party has swung far to the right of where it used to be. Republicans once believed in market-based government solutions. Now they are suspicious of government solutions altogether. That's true even in an area such as health care where government, through Medicare and Medicaid, already plays a necessarily large role.

As for the Democrats, they have been both pragmatic and moderate, despite all the claims that this plan is "left wing" or "socialist." It is neither.

You could argue that Democrats have learned from Republicans. Some might say that Democrats have been less than true to their principles.

But there is a simpler conclusion: Democrats, including President Obama, are so anxious to get everyone health insurance that they are more than willing to try a market-based system and hope it works. It's a shame the Republicans can no longer take "yes" for an answer.

E.J. Dionne's e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.

(c) 2010, Washington Post Writers Group

[SnakeBoy]

In his speech this morning Obama repeatedly referenced the vote that would take place this weekend. Which means they have the votes.

[boutons_deux]

Final bill on display 72 hours starting Thursday,
vote is Sunday, at earliest.

[boutons_deux]

As I said earlier, this is very probably how DK got convinced to vote yes.

Reid Promises Separate Public Option Vote In Next Few Months

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/19/reid-promises-separate-pu_n_506272.html?view=print

Do it well before Nov, and all the libtards and independents who have been discouraged by lack of public option, to say nothing of the ACORN millions and millions of poor Latinos, will vote DEM heavily in November.

Then the NRA/Miltiamen/teabaggers can start bombing and shooting up the country, watering the Tree of Libertee.

[boutons_deux]

When the public option was announced as dead, the for-profit insurance company stocks spiked.

Will they crater this afternoon and Monday as the public option returns as real competition to their monopoly-exempt gouging?

Next up, remove the AMA-imposed limit on doctors training (aka restraining supply to inflate the price in the face of inelastic demand). America is badly under doctored, esp in rural areas.

[boutons_deux]

Single-buyer/single-payer is certainly in the same trajectory, and will force BigPharma's rip-off prices way down in USA where they are when BigPharma sells the same drugs outside of USA to single-buyer national health systems.

[boutons_deux]

Grayson Pushes Public Option On His Own Terms


Congressman Alan Grayson (D) Fla. has been waging his own war on the
health insurance industry by proposing a straightforward public option plan through the existing Medicare network. But in contrast to the 2000+ page proposal endorsed by the president, Grayson's bill is a robust 4 pages.

Grayson proposes to extend Medicare benefits to anyone from birth to age 64 with a simple 'buy-in.' In a recent interview, Grayson was emphatic in how this plan compares to Obama's, as well as the single-payer plan recommended by the group Physicians for A National Health Plan.

"The president's plan is lacking a public option, and this is a public option. This would be a wonderful supplement to the president's plan, but it also stands on its own," he said.

In fact, the short title of H.R. 4789 is listed as the "Public Option Act," or the "Medicare You Can Buy Into Act."

According to the congressman, the medicare buy-in will generate the same cost savings of any large group using already existing Medicare networks of providers and hospitals. Consequently, this introduces an element of competition in a market saturated by a handful of private insurers who now have close to a de facto monopoly.

"This will enormously help people who live in areas of the country where only one or two private insurance companies have 80% of the market or more," said Grayson. "It improves on the president's plan by taking existing valuable resources in the Medicare provider network and opening it up to 6/8 of the population that cannot benefit from it."

Grayson also points out that this bill forbids any discrimination based on preexisting conditions or gender differences, as exists now in our for profit system. The only distinction in price would be based on 6 age cohorts, ranging from birth to age 64, which reflects the reality of medical care provision costs.

The practice of policy rescission is a particularly sore point to Grayson and would be illegal. Grayson explained that far too many people discover this rescission practice after its too late.

"The problem with private health insurance is that you can get all the care you need, providing you don't need it," said Grayson.

Grayson also attributes this practice to the profit motive and asserts that private insurers have a 'conflict of interest,' which makes them a poor choice for the administration of medical care.

As for the comparison to single payer systems, Grayson explained that the medicare buy-in provides the same services, it is merely the method of payment which differs.

When asked if he would back a bill establishing the right of individual states to create their own single-payer state-wide system, Grayson explained that the Senate bill already provides for this tool.

When asked if he would back an alternative plan to cut spending in areas such as defense and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to transfer those monies to domestic needs such as a single-payer system, Grayson's response was direct:

"I've said a million times that I think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have to end. We have to take care of ourselves, and when I say we have to take care of ourselves, I meant that our health care, education, roads, bridges, our human needs. I'm not saying that we should end the war for the purpose of enacting single-payer. I think we should end the war for the purpose of eliminating the headlock that the military-industrial-complex has on America and meeting our human needs."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/19/grayson-pushes-public-opt_n_506052.html?view=print

===========

This guy seems to have his head screwed on pretty good, and is really trying push America forward. He's the one who said the Repugs reform plan was "get sick and die early". Give 'em hell and send them to hell. :)

Compare with retrogressive, consitipated conservatives who think the status quo is just great.

[jack sommerset]

Seriously Buttons. Is Spursdynasty another troll of yours?

[Nbadan]

Faux News just twitted...


BREAKING: Dems appear to reach magic 216 vote number, putting them in position to pass health care bill

http://twitter.com/foxnews/statuses/10744206000

[boutons_deux]

Serious, Jack, GFY

[jack sommerset]

Bad news for america. The saga goes on.............

I don't believe u buttons

[Wild Cobra]

No worries. The supreme court will rule the rule they are using unconstitutional in the manner they are using it.

[jack sommerset]

No worries. The supreme court will rule the rule they are using unconstitutional in the manner they are using it.

I don't think so.

Good news is America will win in the end killing the health care bill, the supreme court will stop this crazy ass political process that Obama SWORE he would never be apart of on his watch (I give Obama credit, he showed how ugly politics are by anyones standards) but it will take getting rid of the dems who allowed this bullshit that kept us hostage for 13 months and eventually passing it. Obama is right when he said this is why we have elections. November he will be reminded of that.

[Wild Cobra]

I don't think so.

Good news is America will win in the end killing the health care bill, the supreme court will stop this crazy ass political process that Obama SWORE he would never be apart of on his watch (I give Obama credit, he showed how ugly politics are by anyones standards) but it will take getting rid of the dems who allowed this bullshit that kept us hostage for 13 months and eventually passing it. Obama is right when he said this is why we have elections. November he will be reminded of that.
Well, the rule will be unconstitutional if:

1) the senate changes the bill in any way.

2) any of the bill is changes by conference reports not yet voted on.

Both houses have to vote on the same bill with no changes to what they vote on, else it's unconstitutional. Any change requires another vote.

[jack sommerset]

Well, the rule will be unconstitutional if:

1) the senate changes the bill in any way.

2) any of the bill is changes by conference reports not yet voted on.

Both houses have to vote on the same bill with no changes to what they vote on, else it's unconstitutional. Any change requires another vote.

True and sounds simple enough but America will vote these freaks out before the supreme court will have to make a ruling.

My bet is the bill does not change. House dems will blame Obama, joining the rest of America, talking about his lies and the 2012 presidental election campaign signs will read" Blame Obama" "Hope" "Change" and whoever runs against him will win in a landside. This bill is stupid and makes zero sense.

[ChumpDumper]

Well, the rule will be unconstitutional if:

1) the senate changes the bill in any way.

2) any of the bill is changes by conference reports not yet voted on.

Both houses have to vote on the same bill with no changes to what they vote on, else it's unconstitutional. Any change requires another vote.Which laws have been overturned by the Supreme Court for the reasons you listed above?

I haven't heard of that kind of procedural overturning. One would think that the lawyers involved would take care of that kind of thing, but I guess anything's possible.

[boutons_deux]

"anything's possible."

With the SCOTUS Repug-packed and compromised by highly political, radical conservative extremists, yes anything's possible.

[Mr. Peabody]

Which laws have been overturned by the Supreme Court for the reasons you listed above?

I haven't heard of that kind of procedural overturning. One would think that the lawyers involved would take care of that kind of thing, but I guess anything's possible.

SB had a link to an interesting and enlightening read in another thread on this subject


Of course there's nothing new to politicians being hypocritical.

I believe the case you're refering to was thrown out because the dems couldn't prove any damages, so it's constitutionality was never ruled on. I found a good article on the topic...
http://www.propublica.org/article/de...ts-experts-say


‘Deem and Pass’ Unlikely to Be Reversed in Courts, Experts Say
by Chisun Lee, ProPublica - March 19, 2010 8:49 am EDT

There's been a lot of buzz this week about the questionable constitutionality of a tactic House Democrats may use to pass the controversial Senate health care bill. By using the so-called deem and pass maneuver, they wouldn't have to vote explicitly for the bill. Instead, they would vote on fixes to the bill -- or maybe on rules for debating the fixes to the bill -- and agree that those votes would count as votes on the bill itself. Congress would then send the health care bill -- explicitly passed by the Senate and "deemed" to have been passed by the House -- to the White House for President Obama's signature.

A written measure proposing to deem the health care bill passed might emerge on Saturday, according to Vincent Morris, spokesman for Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Rules Committee.

Some critics, most prominently former federal appeals court judge Michael McConnell, say this strategy is too roundabout to meet the Constitution's requirement that both chambers of Congress approve a law before it can be considered valid. "These constitutional rules set forth in Article I are not mere exercises in formalism," McConnell wrote ($) this week in the Wall Street Journal. "They ensure the democratic accountability of our representatives."

The issue is more than academic. It raises a question with very real stakes: Could using "deem and pass" result in the undoing of historic health care legislation by a decision of the Supreme Court?

A number of legal experts -- who, like politicians, never say never -- say it's highly unlikely, but not impossible. They've raised at least three major obstacles that would have to be overcome before such a result could come to pass.

First, the right plaintiff would have to bring the lawsuit. That plaintiff would have to be able to claim that a concrete injury -- usually articulated as monetary or physical harm -- resulted directly from the challenged law and that the injury would be cured if the law were struck down.

That rules out angry Republican legislators, says Erwin Chemerinsky, who is dean of U.C. Irvine's law school and a widely respected scholar of the legal and diplomatic intricacies of federal court decision-making. Chemerinsky tried and failed to mount a similar challenge to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 on behalf of angry Democratic legislators, -- including Slaughter, who happens to have come up with the current "deem and pass" idea, nicknamed "the Slaughter solution."

In that case, no one disputed that the House and Senate had passed technically different versions of a bill -- the House version permitted certain Medicare payments for 36 months, while the Senate version stated 13 months -- or that President George W. Bush had signed the Senate version rather than wait for identical language to emerge from both bodies. "A different bill passed the House and the Senate, in clear violation of Article I, section 7" of the Constitution, said Chemerinsky.

Even so, the Democrats were quickly thrown out of court. A federal judge explained that their claim of having been cheated out of the legislation they wanted wasn't the kind of injury a lawsuit could resolve. The same barrier would probably stop legislators or interest groups seeking to attack the pending health care law, according to Chemerinsky.

In an e-mail exchange with ProPublica this week, McConnell said that coming up with the right scenario to challenge a "deemed passed" health care law would be "complicated." But he suggested it wouldn't be impossible.

He pointed to a 1998 Supreme Court case, Clinton v. New York, which struck down the Line Item Veto Act as unconstitutional. By passing that law, Congress had tried to give the president unilateral authority to delete parts of spending measures rather than send back entire bills for the legislature to rework to his liking. The Court said Congress had turned over its lawmaking duties to the president, which the Constitution forbids. The successful plaintiffs in that case -- the City of New York and a group of potato growers in Idaho -- alleged they were at immediate risk of suffering economic harm because the president was vetoing measures they'd been relying on to make financial plans.

Someone could claim that the health care overhaul causes a similarly concrete injury. The bill's proponents are touting the immediate and tangible impact the measure would have on certain businesses and individuals.

Even a plaintiff with a solid claim would have to persuade a court to decide the case rather than dismiss it based on what's known as institutional deference. Essentially, that means the judiciary would take Congress at its word if it says that "deeming" a bill passed is the same as passing a bill, without getting into the constitutional issues, according to Chemerinsky. Convincing a court that it should do otherwise is highly unlikely to happen, he says. Under a long-standing rule, courts generally won't question whether a bill was properly passed as long as the House speaker and the president pro tempore of the Senate -- currently, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. -- say it was. The idea is to avoid a flood of lawsuits challenging the sausage-making procedures behind federal statutes.

McConnell -- who in addition to having been a federal appeals court judge has argued 11 cases before the Supreme Court, clerked for the famed liberal justice William Brennan and now teaches constitutional law at Stanford -- has found a possible way around this rule. He e-mailed ProPublica a citation to a footnote in a 1990 case, where the Supreme Court said that rule of deference couldn't stop the courts from doing their duty "to review the constitutionality of congressional enactments."

Finally, a plaintiff who got past these initial hurdles would have to make a winning constitutional argument. That's where things would really get sticky. McConnell thinks the case is clear: To be constitutional, the bill that becomes a law must have "passed both houses in the same form," he contends. A House measure implicitly passing the Senate bill is not the "same form" as the Senate bill, he says. For a resulting health care law to be constitutional, he said, the House must pass exactly the Senate bill, or both chambers must start over and agree to pass some identical bill.

But not everyone agrees that the constitutional requirement is so technical -- that to pass a bill, both chambers have to pass it in "the same form." The "same form" language doesn't appear in the constitutional section McConnell cites.

Yale constitutional scholar Jack Balkin argues that a House measure that clearly incorporates the text of the Senate bill would be good enough. McConnell's Stanford colleague, Pamela Karlan, who also clerked at the Supreme Court and now leads students in litigating before the justices, agrees that the Constitution's requirement may not be so rigid.

McConnell's main support for his view is the line-item veto case, where the Supreme Court declared that a law is validly enacted only if "(1) a bill containing its exact text was approved by a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives; (2) the Senate approved precisely the same text; and (3) that text was signed into law by the President."

Could a House measure deeming the Senate bill to be passed amount to the same thing as a bill "containing" the Senate bill -- as his counterparts suggest it could? McConnell did not respond to this last query.

Already the legal debate has taken on a political reality. Congressional Republicans are predicting legal challenges, should the House choose to "deem" the health care bill to be passed.

But Democratic leaders don"t appear to be worried. Rep. Slaughter said in an e-mail to ProPublica that the tactic was routine and that an indirect vote for the Senate bill should be viewed as "an up or down vote on the bill."

The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. But President Obama has been brushing off worries about legislative procedure, saying in one television interview, "If people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform."

[SnakeBoy]

I heard on a show a couple of law experts talking about the constitutional challenges to this bill. According to them the real constitutional battle will be over the federal mandate to purchase private insurance. States are positioning themselves to challenge that and according to the two "experts" they have a pretty good chance of succeeding.

[EmptyMan]

Keep on pouring gas to the flame.

[Marcus Bryant]

Hey, there will be nothing wrong with granting politicians the ability to require you to spend a large chunk of your income annually for the rest of your life on what they wish.

And I never thought I'd see liberal Democrats line up to force Americans to hand over their cash to large corporations. That's what this bill does.

[spursncowboys]

Hey, there will be nothing wrong with granting politicians the ability to require you to spend a large chunk of your income annually for the rest of your life on what they wish.

And I never thought I'd see liberal Democrats line up to force Americans to hand over their cash to large corporations. That's what this bill does.

after giving those same corp. truck loads of money to buy off their competition and increase their market share.