In a tight vote, the House passed its sweeping health bill late Saturday, marking the biggest victory yet for Democrats in their drive to create near-universal health insurance.
The bill passed by a 220-215 margin. It came after House leaders made a surprise last-minute concession that blocks abortion from the new government insurance plan in order to win over wavering Democrats.
Its passage moves Congress closer to the biggest expansion of the social safety net since the Medicare insurance program for the elderly was created in 1965. The measure spends $1.01 trillion over a decade to provide health insurance to an additional 36 million Americans and creates a new public insurance plan to compete with private insurers by 2013. It requires most Americans to carry insurance, creates a new exchange where they can shop for it and gives the lowest earners tax credits to help them pay for it.
11:08 PM ET — The final bill has been passed: 220-215, with 1 yea GOP and 39 nay Dem votes.
11:00 PM ET — Finally, they are voting on the bill. 215 votes already, all Dems. 36 nay votes; 41 necessary to kill the bill. 7 Dem votes left.
10:58 PM ET — TORT reform is rejected: 247-187, with 3 GOP yea and 12 Dem nay votes.
10:39 PM ET — Lawmakers are discussing TORT reform. Now voting on it – 15 minutes. It is pretty clear that the GOP will loose this one.
10:36 PM ET — GOP Substitute Bill is rejected: 258-176, with one nay GOP vote.
10:21 PM ET — Now 5 more minutes (expect 10 or more) to vote on the GOP substitute bill.
10:18 PM ET— The Stupak ammendment has been passed: 240-194 with 64 aye Dem votes. Funny to see that many lawmakers voted after the time expired.
09:57 PM ET — Lawmakers now have 15 minutes to vote on the Stupak ammendment, which bans abortion coverage in the public exchange.
09:26 PM ET — OK, the general debate is getting to an end. Now Boehner is closing and Pelosi or Waxman should follow. It seems Dems are confident that bill will pass. Probably not before midnight, though.
09:02 PM ET — As John and Adam always say, it is tough watching CSPAN — I’m tired of hearing “I yield 60 seconds to the distinguished member from Iowa”.
08:55 PM ET — Sources tell Politico that Dems have the vote: “House Democrats believe they’ve secured the 218 votes they need to approve the bill, several party insiders said.”
Schedule
- General debate (until around 9:30 PM ET)
- Debate on the Stupak anti-abortion amendment
- Debate on the Republican health care substitute
- Votes on the Stupak amendment and the GOP substitute
- Debate on the “motion to recommit,” a procedural move used by the minority party
- Vote on the motion to recommit
- Vote on the full bill (at around 12 PM ET)
Dems bill – HR 3962 (opencongress.org)
- seeks to expand coverage to 36 million Americans
- creation of government-run insurance plan
- requires all Americans to have health insurance
- prohibition on denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions (fine of up to U$250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years)
- establish a new health insurance exchange (where people will buy health insurance from)
- surtax on households with an income above U$350,000
- gross cost is U$1.055 trillion over 10 years
GOP bill – substitute to HR 3962 (PDF)
- seeks to expand coverage to 3 million Americans (less than population’s growth during the first 10 years)
- won’t create a government-run insurance plan
- reduce deficits by U$68 billion
Live blog – Huffington Post
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What’s the difference between a “nay” vote and a “no” vote?
Hey, where the heck in Bobbo when we need his opinion?? Nobody gets time off here!
“With a NATIONAL plan..
“Your doctor gets to lower his prices as his INSURANCE goes down..AND if he makes to many MISTAKES, he wont have a job.”
How do you expect that to happen?
This bill is anti tort reform. It actually punishes states with tort reform and will reward them if they remove tort reform. Why? The trial lawyers are bribe paying Democrats. The drug companies got a similar cheery deal.
They claim they are going to save hundreds of millions from medicare each year while the number of people that qualify for medicare is going up sharply.
They also claim that you can keep your medical care as is and there won’t be lines even though thousands of Doctors have said they will do something else if this cow flop passes. Many businesses will drop coverage and just pay the bloody tax. There is also a major question about the amount they will pay Dr. and others and if it isn’t enough Dr. and others will try to get the money from private insurance which is going to drive up the cost so such until nearly everyone is on government run and the medical profession doesn’t have the cash to provide decent care or attract the best minds because the job doesn’t pay enough. Either that or they just won’t take medicare patients or maybe any government patients.
Next if I ran a business I’d work my staff as much over time as they would stand before I even considered hiring a part time employee and had to pay for health care for them. Two to one that tax comes out of the workers pay check.
To put it bluntly American business is going to become as uncompetitive as EU business which means Jobs, Jobs, Jobs are going, going, gone to other nations not run by business hating nit wits.
Let’s face it. If the Republicans aren’t going to leave us any jobs, this reform is necessary. If they hadn’t shipped all those jobs overseas after Clinton, this wouldn’t be an issue. NO JOBS = NO REPUBLICANS. Let’s keep it that way.
> “The Stupak/Pitts amendment violates the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all…and the Stupak/Pitts amendment would result in the elimination of private abortion coverage in the ‘exchange,’…
… In the coming weeks, Planned Parenthood will work with its allies in the Senate to…
I thought the president assured us there was no coverage for abortion in this bill. Why is the Stupak amendment needed, and why is Planned Parenthood so upset about the loss of abortion coverage that never existed?
In New Hampshire you don’t have to buy car insurance. Guess what? Car insurance costs half as much there compared to the other states. We could see a doubling of premiums because of this bullshit bill. If companies don’t have to compete for buyers there is no downward pressure on prices. You morons think you can fix everything by waving a gun around.
ECA,
Clearly, you are having trouble understanding that driving is a privilege and thus the government can add just about any restriction it wants for people to qualify for that privilege. However, in the case of this health care bill, there will be no way to avoid this paying for health insurance. If you do not work, you do not pay taxes but will still be required to have health insurance or go to jail.
#35
Excuse me Gramps, but the Republicans did not move jobs overseas. The high cost of conducting business in the US moved jobs overseas.
#39 70% of the US economy based on spending moved your jobs overseas.
#39: Please explain what all these unemployed people are going to do now if the jobs are elsewhere? To be sure, they won’t be buying much but the bare necessities. Conducting business in the US just might be a thing of the past.
Man am I looking forward to someone wiping the smile off Pelosi’s face…
Now my first reaction is, ‘Do I still live in a capitalist society???’. But of course this is still just the very begining of everything.
a) Still needs to pass the Senate, which it won’t
b) Senate might pass its own bill, but then it will have to go into committiee
c) with implementation set for 2013 it gives you plenty of time for the court cases to hit.
They still could legislate this thing to death too.
They could have saved themselves the trouble and just not passed this, but I know Congress can’t help themselves. They never saw an issue they could leave alone.
#41
> Conducting business
> in the US just
> might be a thing of the past.
Unlikely, but the creation of production in the US might be. Businesses are going to setup shop in whatever location provides the best value of which a cost a major factor. Those business are not coming back until relocating here makes financial sense. It should be clear that the Federal, State and Local business taxes and the litigiousness of our society has driven businesses and, thus jobs, away.
I think I am going to vomit.
While you’re taking a vomit break (I’ll join you in just a sec) Take a good look at Pelosi, she’s fantasizing that she’s just been elected President 2012.
#41 Floyd
Not to worry:
Saved + Created = Less Than Zero
So between the stupid stimulus bill of 2009 and this thing the Democrats have spent $2,000,000,000,000 and gotten 1 Republican vote. This passes for bipartisanship in the non-thinking world of academia and elite media. How many in the media will even mention the word bipartisan now? What a sham.
WELL it passed ,we’re fucked.
Start saving every penny you can cause you’re gonna want to pack it out of the country with in a few short years.Trust me.
Well, the republicans should be happy. They just regained control of congress in 2010.
A party in power just can’t help but self destruct it seems.
The Dems just imploded.
Starting this thing in 2013 was a miscalculation.
The Republican House of 2010 won’t let it stand.
5 votes, wow, that’s quite a mandate. Yawn.
Papers! Where are your Papers?
or how about No pay no play baby!
Hey! guess what? It’s already “Time for Change” again!!!
We are fucked.
#24
George Washington also own slaves. In addition, there were no insurance policies in Washington’s era.
Wait till you get all the Canadian style big bureaucrats
No health care
Long lines
1984 double speak
Nothing but excuses along with nicely colored graphs and charts
Americans can be said to be almost as stupid and easily led as Canadians
Its George Soros’s dream
I’m OK with liberals wanting gov’t run health care. That’s fine. I mean, I’m not crazy about the idea but what the hell do I know? I only ask that the Congress-critters place themselves under the plan they’ve created.
Live under the rules you demand of your subjects…if it’s good enough for our masters then it must be OK for us, right?
#54 Technically there was Lloyd’s of London back then but I see your point.
Lose your job, go to jail.
Otherwise, how are you going to pay the premium!
Makes perfect sense!
At least now they can round up the homeless and charge them with failure to buy health insurance.
#48 M-tits
Emigration is an excellent idea, and not as expensive or difficult as you might think, but exactly where would you go? Most of the civilized world has social medicine already.
I do not understand why the Republicans supported the Stupak amendment. A smart minority party would have voted present. Killing the amendment might have killed the final bill (a swing of three votes was all that was needed). But instead, the GOP gave pro-life Democrats the cover they needed to vote for the full bill.
Re 60 Blashy.
Ditto.
Just two personal Canadian examples…
Sure, if you’re not all that sick, you might have to sometimes wait your turn in emerg, but check this out:
Once had an MRI for a false alarm 15 min after arriving at emergency.
Had a 2.5 month premature baby requiring maybe 1 million $ of care. That’s 24 hours near-personal specialized-nurse care, as most all preemies require – til healthy discharge at what should have been term. Total cost: not even a hint of a bill. Not even the inconvenience of paperwork.
Our monthly pay-in is so small, I honestly don’t even know what it is. I’m guessing twice the cablevision.
RBG