Senate passes health care bill. Is the battle over?
December 24th, 2009 | by Brian Schwartz |The Senate has passed the health care (”reform” = entrenchment-of-everything-bad-about-health-care-policy) bill. But is the battle over? From Dan Perrin at Red State on Jim DeMint’s objection to conferee appointments:
because of the Senator DeMint’s objection, unless the House votes for the Senate bill unchanged — which is highly unlikely (see below) — then the Senate ObamaCare bill must be amended on the House floor to gain the votes they need to pass it on the House floor. And because of Senator DeMint’s objection to the appointment of the conferees, there will be no conference, or conference report.
If the House amends the Senate bill, they then have to send the amended bill back to the Senate — where all the 60 vote margin cloture votes still apply — cloture on the motion to proceed, and cloture to end the filibuster and cloture on any amendment.
Do I believe that this objection to the appointment of the conferees will kill ObamaCare? Yes, if the progressives or those 64 House Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment do not roll over and play dead.
Lots of “in the trenches” political maneuvering here. Read the whole post for details. (Via FIRM)
Grace-Marie Turner at National Review describes growing opposition (though isn’t this too late?):
Fears that the bill will be a budget buster were reinforced by Wednesday’s Congressional Budget Office post showing the Senate bill double-counts Medicare savings. …
And opposition from outside groups that have been relatively quiet until now is growing:
According to Politico: “Some of the biggest employers in the U.S. are warning that a provision in the Senate’s proposed health-care overhaul could lead to cuts in retiree benefits and a sharp reduction in reported earnings next year.
… The AFL-CIO has joined the corporate giants in an unusual alliance to warn the provision would encourage companies to drop drug benefits for millions of retirees.”
They will join the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been out front from the beginning with its concerns, as well as doctors groups representing more than 240,000 physicians, and now the National Federation of Independent Business. The NFIB came out strongly last week against the Senate bill, saying it “is short on savings and long on costs, is the wrong reform, at the wrong time and will increase healthcare costs and the cost of doing business.”
And the new “Start Over” new coalition of leading business organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation, and many others said the Senate bill “will lead to higher costs and increased burdens on small businesses. The bill will cause greater damage to our economy and health care system …[and] will impose new burdens on small businesses.”
Read her whole post.
tags: Harry Reid, HR 3590, Jim Dimint, Obama Care, politics of health care
