LOS ANGELES (YBH.ME) - The 7 a.m. vote on December 24 in the Senate, approving the health care bill, was the first vote on that date since 1895. “This morning isn’t the end of the process, it’s merely the beginning. We’ll continue to build on this success to improve our health system even more,” Majority Leader Harry Reid said . An exhausted Reid mistakenly voted “no” before quickly changing his vote amid laughter.
Senator DeMint Begins The Fight
The bill needed only a simple majority to pass, which it did, 60 votes to 39. Retiring Republican Senator Jim Bunning, of Kentucky, missed the vote due to family commitments. A battle to reconcile the House’s version, passed in November, now commences. The House bill features a so-called “public option” – a government-run health plan, and has stricter limits on abortion. The Senate bill omits a public option and reputedly has poorly crafted language which will all but mandate public funds being made available for abortion, opposed by a majority of Americans. President Obama has said he will sign a bill which does not have a public option. The Senate bill came to the floor via cloture, in which a vote is forced and a filibuster is skirted. Reid’s deal-making to bring the bill is being widely scrutinized, most particularly Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson’s set-aside in which the state of Nebraska’s Medicaid costs will be picked up by the Feds in perpetuity. Aside from the Constitutional question of whether Federal expenditure without a time limit is even proper, critics point out there is little to prevent states bordering Nebraska from “dumping” their indigent patients in the state and putting them on the Federal tab. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin foresees a scenario where the Federal Government will end up picking up all costs of future Medicaid expansion, across all 50 states, due to Ben Nelson’s crafty negotiating.
Associated Press reports South Carolina’s Henry McMaster and the attorneys general of Michigan and Washington state will join in a suit to determine the constitutionality of the ObamaCare proposal. South Carolina’s two senators, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint, both Republicans, requested the action. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states or the people all rights not specifically granted to the federal government. A health care mandate may or may not fly with the courts.
DeMint has said he is also focusing on the issue of the Reid amendment’s provision seeking to bar future congresses from changing even a single word of Section 3403 on the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB), popularly referred to as “Death Panels.” The amendment was not widely covered in the press, but is likely to be a point of contention moving forward.
President Obama and his family left Washington after the vote for a long-planned Hawaiian vacation. The President and his family, along with the entire Congress, will most likely never be subject to the legislation they just passed.
