Speaker Pelosi opening post-vote press conference. Watch it here.
It’s been an exceptionally long year for the president, his party, the Democratic caucuses in the Congress and everyone who was involved in whatever fashion in the 2008 election. A year ago, the Health Care debate got started in a climate in which there was little doubt that the president would pass his plan, and soon. That reality was most clearly expressed in the stance adopted by the key industry stakeholders who wanted to be in the discussion and on board rather than in opposition to it. They figured that passage was a done deal and wanted to affect the final bill in their favor as much as possible rather than waste time opposing it. Read More
We take a look at the path ahead for health care reform in the Senate, where the reconciliation “fix” still has to pass.
The White House will undertake a three-phase public relations push to sell health care reform to voters. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
As our feature story notes, it’s not over yet. There’s still the big reconciliation vote in the Senate. As I’ve argued, the Republicans are pretty much just blowing smoke about being able to trip things up there. But still, the senate’s an inherently unpredictable place. So you never know. But I wanted to make sure that everybody understands that on the most fundamental level, it is over. 100% over. Read More
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) is on Fox at the moment describing what’s coming next in the Senate. And with all due respect he’s just not telling the truth, to put it generously. There’s no other way to describe it. He’s claiming that Republicans are going to do everything they can to improve the bill, not just gum things up. Now, ‘improvement’ is inherently subjective. Improvement in his eyes would mean dramatically changing the legislation. But this is a case where there’s no ambiguity. In the simplest, most direct sense that’s simply not what they’re trying to do. Republicans are going to do everything in their power to prevent the Democrats from doing things like taking out the “Cornhusker Kickback” and all the rest of the unpopular stuff. This isn’t an opinion. That’s what they’re trying to do. It is transparently political. They want to keep that stuff in the bill so they can blame it on the Democrats and run against it.
John McCain: There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year. They have poisoned the well in what they’ve done and how they’ve done it.”
We have denials this morning from two of the suspects in the “Baby killer!” outburst during Rep. Bart Stupak’s floor speech last night. Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA) says it wasn’t he. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) says, “I have no idea who yelled it because they were seated behind me and the House was packed.”