I just updated our running tally of Democrats who voted ‘no’ on the House health care bill. If a pattern’s emerging, it’s this: The most conservative, and vulnerable Democrats are still going to oppose reform after a final bill emerges from the House-Senate conference. So, it seems, will members like Eric Massa and Dennis Kucinich who opposed the House bill on the grounds that it wasn’t far-reaching enough.
But for the first time, we’re seeing signs that some of the members who opposed the bill the first time around are keeping their options open–even leaning towards supporting the final bill if it closely resembles the Senate package.
Freshman Blue Dog Rep. Betsy Markey (D-CO) says some positive things about the Senate bill, and is keeping an open mind. Blue Dog Jason Altmire (D-PA) is on the record saying that the Senate bill is stronger than the House bill, and that “a lot” of Blue Dogs might flip their votes from ‘no’ to ‘yes’ if the Senate bill prevails in conference.
This is roughly as expected–but we’ll let you know if the trend changes in the days and weeks ahead.
