CQ Politics is reporting that the House has scheduled the vote on health care reform for this Saturday. It is highly unlikely that any amendments will be offered. It is incredibly unlikely that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would have scheduled a vote so soon if leadership was not completely confident in its ability to pass the legislation. While there has been some grumbling from progressives and threats by pro-life Democrats, a few last minute changes, like the Office of Minority Health and more stringent language preventing federal funds from paying for abortion, seem to have been enough to secure the bill’s passage.
Despite many problems with the bill, if it passes on Saturday, it will be a huge accomplishment for House Democrats–and Nancy Pelosi. With determination, deal making, many concessions, and some arm-twisting, the Speaker was able to get three different committees to work together to produce one of the most consequential bills in decades.
In the Senate, things don’t look nearly as rosy for Harry Reid. Reid has still not produced a final bill, and is waiting for more analysis on different provisions from the CBO. He has yet to unite his caucus behind his plan, and has now indicated that reform may not pass before the end of the year.
Nancy Pelosi is set to soon pass an acceptable health care reform bill in the House, now we wait to see if how Harry Reid and Senate Democrats will ruin it.



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Wouldn’t it be nice if Reid could just schedule an upperdown vote on the House bill and get it over with?
I think the Saturday timing is because of the Veterans’ Day Holiday next Wednesday. I believe the Senate is planning on splitting town as of next Tuesday, and the House may plan to take the whole week off, as a reward for letting Party leadership ram the bill through the full House on Saturday (flashbacks to the Protect America Act), without even a pretense of allowing our representatives to genuinely debate and amend the legislation on the floor – on the record and in public view. Ain’t abusing undemocratic power to silence democratic dissent grand?
At any rate, at 2 p.m. this Friday the Rules Committee is meeting to adopt the rule that will make sure that no actual “representative democracy” gets a chance to break out on the House floor on this bill:
http://rules.house.gov/bills_details.aspx?NewsID=4465
Oh? Says who?
Acceptable to whom? See here, here, here, and here.