David Dayen at Lake du Fire Dogs has been watching the Senate vote on the Reconciliation side car “fix” to the Health Insurance Bailout bill this morning.
http://news.firedoglake.com/20…
It passed, 56 to 43. V.P. Joe Biden was there, indicating that the administration didn’t quite trust the Democratic Senators to behave themselves. Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas (OPEC API IPAA, Mellon Scaife, & Koch Oil, Mutual of Omaha, & Walmart, LLC) voted against the reconciliation bill.
Surprise ! It has to now go back to the House again for another vote, saith the Parliamentarian
Remember when there was talk of how the amendment process in the Senate would only need a simple 50 vote majority under the rules of reconciliation, and therefore some Senator could offer an amendment with a Public Option, and there was Sen. Bennett’s (D, CO) letter http://bennet.senate.gov/newsr… going around with the signatures, and the People in Charge said Absolutely Not, we are taking no amendments on this because we can’t risk the Republicans delaying with their own ? An everybody got into line?
Surprise ! They were just kidding.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
How about putting it in the year 2011 Budget, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota ?
“I’d be unwilling to kick up dust on some new matter before we’ve resolved this one,” he told reporters.
A status quo You Can Believe In.
They say over 25 million Americans will be left out of coverage. It’s more. They’re wrong, there’s 300 million who were planning on the Constitution covering them, and it’s still random, depending on which state you reside in.
But only the Democratic Party could try to get away with it, having drawn such courage from watching the Republicans cheer them on as they continue to thumb their noses at the core constituency who actually voted to put them in office, and had bothered to read the quaint old thing.
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update:
AHIP Already kicking sick kids to the curb
nyceve has posted this story about America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP, think Karen Ignagni the lobbyist) which wrote much of the bill incognito, saying that it intreprets the new law as not requiring insurers to cover all child applicants this year. They would prefer to wait until 2014.
This bill is being “sold” as finally making insurance available for all children (except non legal residents) this year. Supposedly the Sec of HHS is going to issue a sternly worded clarification, or something. But insurers can jack up rates in the meantime-