We at US Democrazy may not have been working last Saturday night, but our friends on Capital Hill were.
Recently you may recall that there has been a bit of a tussle about health care reform. (Okay.. it wasn’t a tussle, more like a mud wrestling match).
Well, a health care bill has taken its first tentative steps towards life after a close 220-215 vote in the House of Representatives.
What does the bill entail? A lot, it’s over 1000 pages short long. For a more sane, digestible look, here is the official summary.
Amazingly, the bill found stunning bipartisan “support”. ONE, (yes ONE) Republican, Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, voted for the bill.
Why did Mr. Cao vote yes? Well Max Fisher, writing for The Atlantic, thinks it was due a number of reasons:
- Needed to Win Re-Election…
- Changing Vietnamese-American Politics…
- ‘Bought Off’ By Obama…
- A Symbolic Vote…
Enough about the House debate, the bill has passed through the House of Representatives. It should be smooth sailing from here on out right?
WRONG! Now the bill must face the Senate and the ever dreaded FILIBUSTER.
What’s a filibuster?
Howard Kurtz, at the Washington Post, likens the filibuster to each Senator having a nuclear weapon
because of the Senate’s arcane rules, which allows any of the Gang of 100 to hold up a nomination or delay a funding bill, even if his or her objections have nothing to do with the issue at hand
Now you may remember the Democrats touting their filibuster proof super majority.
Well, it depended on all of the Democratic Senators AND all of the independent Senators voting together. Much to the Democrats chagrin, the rogue of rogues, Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, has stated he’ll be casting his vote with the Republicans.
Mr. Lieberman has painted a target on his head. The name ‘Traitor Joe” has been thrown around by liberal pundits, such as Paul Bengala who complains
Sen. Lieberman is always there when we don’t need him. Don’t ask him to do more than that. It’s just too much.
This bill has broken its fair share of friendships. Now we’ll just have to wait and see where all of this political dancing leads. Do you, our faithful readers have any ideas (or opinions).
We’d love to hear them as our BIG heads could use some ideas to fill the vacant space.
[...] We here at USDemocrazy are trying are hard (a novelty for us) to follow the recent health care hullabaloo that took place in Washington on Saturday night (check it out here). [...]
[...] ONE, (yes ONE) Republican, Anh “ Joseph ” Cao of Louisiana, voted for the bill. Why did Mr. Cao vote yes? Well Max Fisher, writing for The Atlantic, thinks it was due a number of reasons: Needed to Win Re-Election… …Continue Reading… [...]
If the health care bill is something that is only going to affect the people who will be using it why is it the politicians get to decide. Why don’t they have a poll for the people and I mean Legal citizens excluding the politicians vote for the health insurance bill whether or not they want it. the Politicians aren’t going to be affected.