Health Care Bill Clears Senate Test

From Talking Points Memo:

GOP Voted To Delay Funding For Troops — As Part Of Health Care Debate?

Everybody knows the health care debate has become more and more contentious, and dominated by a Republican parliamentary effort to delay the debate. But an under-appreciated aspect of this whole controversy — exceedingly rare, if not unprecedented — is the fact that it’s even affected defense spending, with Senate Republicans having worked to hold that up, too!

Late on Thursday night, the Senate voted 63-33 to break a Republican filibuster of the defense appropriations bill. Only three Republicans voted against this delay of military spending: Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME). The filibuster was part of a Republican effort to further delay the health care bill.

So think for a second about what happened here. The Senate GOP sought to hold up military spending — and not because of an argument with the defense appropriations bill itself or something in it that might have been offensive to them, but in an attempt to block a domestic political debate. It was an especially interesting position for a party that repeatedly accused then-Senator Barack Obama, during the 2008 campaign, of trying to “defund the troops” when he voted against a military funding bill because it didn’t include a timeline to withdraw from Iraq.
[…]

…continued at Talking Points Memo.

From Talking Points Memo:

McCain: Ted Kennedy Would Be Disappointed Health Care Bill Not Bipartisan (VIDEO)

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said today that he didn’t think the late Sen. Ted Kennedy would appreciate that health care reform was passed “on a party line vote.”

McCain slammed the Senate bill because “there has never been a major reform accomplished in the history of this country that wasn’t bipartisan.”

He also said: “Senator Kennedy would appreciate the outcome. I don’t think he would appreciate it on a party line vote.”

All of the negotiations and efforts that I made with him, we never engaged in this kind of unsavory process of offering people different deals, which in the end cost people from other states lots of money and puts burdens on them.

Here’s the full clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89CHx2zUPTg

From Media Matters for America:

Levin: Harry Reid is “the Mussolini of the Senate,” “one sick man”

From Media Matters for America:

Limbaugh on Landrieu, Nelson, Dodd: “prostitution has been legalized in Washington, D.C.”

From Media Matters for America:

FoxNews.com falsely claimed CBO said “Senate health bill won’t reduce deficits”

A headline posted on FoxNews.com falsely claimed, “CBO: Senate Health Bill Won’t Reduce Deficits.” In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that the bill would reduce federal deficits by $132 billion over 2010-2019 and would continue to reduce deficits in subsequent decades

***BREAKING NEWS***

From Talking Points Memo:

Sector Snap: Health insurers surge after key vote

Health insurers jump after key Senate vote on health care reform; passage expected this week

Note: TPM’s source is AP News, and I cannot copy the text of the article without the express permission of the Associated Press. Sorry.

***BREAKING NEWS***

From Talking Points Memo:

AMA Endorses Health Care Reform

The American Medical Association today endorsed the Senate health care reform bill.

The organization’s president-elect, Cecil Wilson, spoke at a press conference with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Senate Democrats.

“After close and careful review, the AMA is pleased to announce its support for passage of the amended health system reform bill,” Wilson said.

He said the AMA supports several “key benefits” in the bill, including “improvements in choice and access” and the elimination of denials for pre-existing conditions.

“America has the best health care in the world, if you can get it. But for far too many people, access to care is out of reach because they lack insurance,” he said. “And this is just not acceptable to physicians.”

He said the AMA has worked closely with senators over the past few weeks. And, because “there is still work to do,” he said the organization will continue to work with the Senate to address issues of concern.

One of those issues is the matter of increasing Medicare payments to doctors, which he said Reid and Sen. Max Baucus promised to address early next year.

From Talking Points Memo:

Sen. Whitehouse: There Will Be A ‘Reckoning’ For GOP’s ‘Desperate, No-Holds-Barred Mission Of Propaganda’

On the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) slammed Republicans for their “desperate, no-holds-barred mission of propaganda, falsehood, obstruction and fear,” which he said will result in a “day of judgment” by the American people.

Whitehouse began his monologue by quoting 1950s intellectual Richard Hofstadter, warning that a right-wing minority could create “a political environment in which the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible.”

“The malignant and vindictive passions that have descended on the Senate are busily creating just such a political climate,” said Whitehouse.

Whitehouse attributed these “desperate acts” to the Democrats’ “momentum,” which is
working toward passing health care reform legislation, and “when we do, the lying time is over. The American public will see what actually comes to pass when we pass this bill as our new law. The American public will see firsthand the difference between what is, and what they were told.”

When it turns out there are no death panels, when there is no bureaucrat between you and your doctor, when the ways your health care changes seem like a good deal to you, and a pretty smart idea, when the American public sees the discrepancy between what really is, and what they were told by the Republicans, there will be a reckoning. There will come a day of judgment about who was telling the truth.

He concluded: “There will come a day of judgment, and our Republican friends know that. That Mr. President, is why they are terrified.”

Here’s the full clip:

I really appreciate the feedback from everyone. 🙂