Senate Finance Committee Health Care Vote UPDATE: Lincoln (D-AR) Voting Yes UPDATE X2...Snowe To Vote Yes (Bumped)

It's going to pass but that is somewhat meaningless since this bill will have nothing to do with the final bill. Whatever they pass today they will have to be reconciled with the Senate HELP Committee bill. Then that will have to be reconciled with whatever the House passes.

So today is an interesting milestone in that we'll get to see where a couple of potential crossover votes stand at the moment...Olympia Snowe of Maine and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.

Right now Senators are making speeches and asking questions. Rockefeller just asked Douglas Elmendorf (CBO Director) if insurance companies could suck up the added costs and not pass them on (that's the answer Rocky wanted). Elmendorf gave the honest answer...added costs almost always get passed through to consumers.

hosta is pointing out this is a farce and that the real bill is being written somewhere behind closed doors and arguing for the 72 hour review period.

I'm not going to liveblog this (real work and all) but I'll update if there's a surprising announcement in the voting.

Snowe just asked a series of process questions about CBO scoring and legislative language. It's important but arcane and gave no hint about her vote.

UPDATE:
Lincoln sounds like she's voting yes. She cited the CBO scoring and then a litany of how awesome it will be for Arkansas.

Says she's in for now but not a guarantee for the future. She sounds a little afraid for doing so but she's in for now.

UPDATE 2 I hate this woman. Like Lincoln she says it's not a promise to vote this way in the future and it's a flawed bill with lots of bad things in it. She rambled on about "history" calling and the need to show Congress can act. What an idiot.

She actually thinks her vote adds legitimacy to the process and outcome (her words, not my interpretation).

God damn I hate these "we were sent here to do something, anything" people. She lost on process (legislative language), she lost on budget and other issues and yet she is voting yes and handing the Democrats a bill and a political tool to do what she says she opposes in the name of doing 'something'. And being the great bi-partisan lioness of the Senate.

Get your ego gratification somewhere else Olympia, this stuff is too important.

Update 3 [ace]: Lieberman says he'll vote no. He says he doesn't like the fact that 87% of the new tax revenue from the plan will come out of the wallets of those making less than $200,000 per year.

posted by DrewM. at 01:03 PM

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