Notice of the meeting went out to Democratic Senate offices Tuesday night, signaling the long wait for the merged bill is about to end.So we'll get our first look at the bill later today. Will it still include the state opt-out on the public option, and will it include the Stupak language? More than likely the answer to both questions will be yes...that is if the ConservaDems ever deign to allow the bill to a vote.
Reid will get some high-level support as he rolls out the plan.
President Barack Obama, who is traveling overseas, dispatched Vice President Joe Biden, Interior Secretary and former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to the Hill Wednesday to assist Reid in securing votes, according to Democratic sources.
“Of all the bills we’ve seen, it’ll be the best: saves more money, is more protective of Medicare, is a bill that’s good for the American people,” Reid told reporters Tuesday. “I’m not going to get into the numbers today, but it’ll — I think if you’re not impressed, you should be.”
If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. -- Benjamin Franklin
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Harry Makes His Move
The Senate version of the Obamacare bill will be rolled out this afternoon on Capitol Hill at 5 PM.
Keeping in mind that Bob Casey has dropped support for changing the status quo on abortion, I would like to predict that language as strict as the Stupak amendment will not be in there (though it will continue to restrict coverage in the directly government funded plans). The other reason to think this is that there was nothing so extreme in even the Finance Committee bill, so injecting language that did not previously exist will be hard to do.
ReplyDeleteThere is that, but of course any Senator can bring up an amendment, so while it may not currently be in the Reid bill, it will almost certainly be added.
ReplyDeleteYou can't get 20 Dems to sell out on this issue, not to mention the women from Maine might cross the aisle on this one. I'm calling this one in favor of no-Stupak, but we'll see.
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