Health reform bill to advance, drawing a single GOP vote
When the Senate Finance Committee votes in a few minutes to approve the Democrats’ health-insurance reform bill, the tally will be technically bipartisan. Olympia Snowe, Republican from Maine, says she’s going to vote in favor of the bill, the sole member of the GOP to do so.
“When history calls, history calls,” she said. “I happen to think the consequences dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate the capacity to solve the monumental issues of our times.”
Snowe also cautioned that her position may change as the bill changes, and it undoubtedly will. The legislation has to be melded with a version passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions before it can be sent to the Senate floor, where it will be amended further. Then it has to be reconciled with whatever emerges from the House.
Republican leaders such as John Boehner are still walking around Washington bragging that reform is dead, that legislation is never going to pass. They’re wrong, and I suspect that by now they’re beginning to realize they’re wrong. Momentum is building; the bill’s going to pass.
In her comments today, Snowe mentioned the changes that she had requested and received in the bill. That’s how the legislative process works. If you’re willing to compromise and negotiate in good faith, you can help mold the outcome. By taking the opposite tack, by making a vote against reform a test of GOP loyalty, Republican leaders have rendered themselves and their concerns irrelevant. The final bill, when it passes, will be more “liberal” than it would have been with GOP involvement.
And the Republicans will hail that as victory.
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314 comments Add your comment
Normal
October 13th, 2009
2:22 pm
Sen. Snowe, the voice of moderation…
Normal
October 13th, 2009
2:23 pm
Snowe/Franken 2012…Yeah!
I Report (-: You Whine )-: O Stands For Zero
October 13th, 2009
2:28 pm
When did Snowe become a Republican?
#1
October 13th, 2009
2:31 pm
another big WIN for Noble Peice Prize Winner Barack H. Obama.
suck it losers!
Bosch
October 13th, 2009
2:33 pm
Olympia Snowe……….sigh……………
Um, what? What were we talking about?
Huckabee The Next POTUS 2012
October 13th, 2009
2:36 pm
That Snowe skank hasn’t been a Republican since springtime. She knows it’s over for her in the Republican Party in the next election so she is sliding up to the dumpocraps hoping someone will take her used up self in. Maybe obozo can put her in his tent for when he feels like vanilla. That’s how the other muslum princes do it. The deathcare bill will still fail in the long run. Too many dumpocraps, from congress and the senate are worried they might have to get a real job, after the voters remove their gravy trains.
reservoirDAWG
October 13th, 2009
2:37 pm
That’s a shame.
joe matarotz
October 13th, 2009
2:38 pm
Let’s never lose sight of the fact that ALL politicians will do and/or say anything that they believe will help get them reelected. I would like to think that Olympia Snowe voted her conscience but I doubt it.
Huckabee The Next POTUS 2012
October 13th, 2009
2:38 pm
#1, You need no help describing your boy. You even spelled piece right, because he really is a piece of…………………..
reservoirDAWG
October 13th, 2009
2:39 pm
another big WIN for Obozo was when he won the Heisman for watching a college football game.
Bosch
October 13th, 2009
2:39 pm
Olympia Snowe (cue angel music) is a Senate goddess.
Zedd
October 13th, 2009
2:41 pm
The key statement being that she will vote for the cuurent bill proposal before the Senate Finance Committee. Snowe said her vote does not mean she will support later versions of the healthcare legislation. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch Jay. There’s still a lot of back door dealing to be done before you get to 60 or 218. It will be war if this monstrosity passes! And no Jay, that is not a call to war, just a prediction.
Taxpayer
October 13th, 2009
2:45 pm
“When history calls, history calls,” she said. “I happen to think the consequences dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate the capacity to solve the monumental issues of our times.”
She needs to come out of the closet. That is just so not Republispeak. It doth fail to wreak of the compassionate conservatism that we have all come to know and love so dearly from the rank of the Republicans.
@@
October 13th, 2009
2:45 pm
The empty promise that healthcare will be funded (in part) by cutting back on waste in medicare and medicaid is a joke on those who believe.
Shawny
October 13th, 2009
2:46 pm
There are senators that do what they think is right, even if it bucks their party. Snowe, McCain, Lieberman immediately come to mind. Other good ones like dems Nunn and Moynihan were perennial professionals. It is unfortunate that those types of dems and reps are a dying breed.
Mrs. Godzilla
October 13th, 2009
2:47 pm
Zedd
Oh please you frighten me with that mean ole’ war talk!
The vapors…I have the vapors…
please BOSCH
catch me if I fall!
GOP is Gone
October 13th, 2009
2:48 pm
FYI, GT grad students were offered an insurance policy with a $10,000 dollar deductible. You read that right people, $10,000, for grad students. That is half of their salary for the year. And one would think that this would be rather cheap, right? Not right. Over $400 a semester, for 20 something year olds. So basically they are given no preventative health care at all. Hope they don’t get sick.
Bosch
October 13th, 2009
2:49 pm
I GOT YOU MRS. G!!! And here, I’ll even fluff the pillows on your swooning couch.
Shawny,
You forgot Susan Collins (cue angel music).
Taxpayer
October 13th, 2009
2:50 pm
GOP is Gone
October 13th, 2009
2:48 pm
Come on now. Gunshot wounds are expensive to repair.
Wyld Byll Hyltnyr
October 13th, 2009
2:52 pm
Obama lied, and now people will die at the hands of death panels.
Plain/Liz Cheney – In 2012 We take back America
Nothing Is Free
October 13th, 2009
2:52 pm
History Calls . . .
LOL!!!
The motivations that liberals will adopt. these are the same kind of people that in 1938, a group of goose stepping soldiers march by: Hey history is calling. Let’s go!!!!!!
GOP is Gone
October 13th, 2009
2:53 pm
Unfortunately my daughter knows of a Grad student who had Leukemia. Now she can not get her check ups, blood work, scans yadda yadda. Hope she stays in remission or is working on a cure herself for her dissertation.
Lead Death Panel Voter
October 13th, 2009
2:55 pm
I vote WBH is toast…
Mrs. Godzilla
October 13th, 2009
2:55 pm
death panels……there’s your sign!
itstrue
October 13th, 2009
2:56 pm
Seems the momentum has shifted in favor of some real reform. Too bad it couldn’t have some Republicans on board, but 60 votes in the Senate is pretty good, and that includes quite a few conservative members, regardless of their party affiliation. Take Conrad, Lincoln and Nelson as good examples.
In other words, there was plenty of compromise between conservatives and liberals, but not so much between the GOP and the Dems.
For a long time, the GOP was upper-crust people from the Northeast and cowboy-types from the West, while Dems were Southerners and Midwestern Unionists.
Point is, it wasn’t always “Republican is to Democrat as Conservative is to Liberal.” Maybe it never was.
Opposition parties have two choices: oppose, or make themselves indispensable to the majority. The GOP tried both, opposing reform with some pretty rough messaging, and going for being indispensable by setting the bar for a “legitimate” majority at 70 or 80 votes in the Senate.
This process suggests that parties can’t oppose and negotiate. For the party of “black and white,” it was a pretty nuanced approach that looks like a major misstep. For that, the GOP lost all authority over the process and looks pretty dishonest. All the bluster may have dragged down Democratic credibility in the polls a bit, but it hurt the GOP’s public image pretty bad too.
Nobody in congress won the popularity contest out of this, but the GOP looks like it got the worst end of the deal. I’d look for a Libertarian third party resurgence a la Ross Perot and/or Ron Paul in ‘10 or ‘12. We’ll see.
Taxpayer
October 13th, 2009
2:57 pm
I say to WBH, Nothing is Free. No need to thank me.
Scooter
October 13th, 2009
2:59 pm
Huckabee The Next POTUS 2012
October 13th, 2009
2:38 pm
I am no brainiac, but you might want to look again at how #1 spelled peice!
Turd Ferguson
October 13th, 2009
2:59 pm
GOP is Gone
October 13th, 2009
2:53 pm
Oh yes…all the pitiful sob storys from these full of BS types. Like the lady with two teefs on TV whining about Clayton County transit system…Her words…”I works all duh way downtown Atlanta an howumz I git dayer now?”
I dont believe this lukemia story whatsoever. Most likely, and you know how college kids are especially women, a story passed down the line and your precious cargo/daughter received it 22nd hand.
Doggone/GA
October 13th, 2009
3:00 pm
“Huckabee The Next”
Sounds like a name from the dark ages, doesn’t it?
Taxpayer
October 13th, 2009
3:00 pm
Perot and Paul are out of the running, itstrue. They’ll need a new torch bearer.
Nothing Is Free
October 13th, 2009
3:00 pm
Wyld Byll Hyltnyr
I watched Liz Cheney disassemble a table full of liberals on ABCs This Week. She is as brilliant as her father.
You think the liberals are afraid of Palin? Wait until they get a taste of what Liz can do to their nonsensical arguments.
itstrue
October 13th, 2009
3:01 pm
Taxpayer– I agree. They were only there as examples. Gotta wonder who though…
Normal
October 13th, 2009
3:01 pm
Taxpayer
October 13th, 2009
2:50 pm
GOP is Gone
October 13th, 2009
2:48 pm
Come on now. Gunshot wounds are expensive to repair.
Have you tried to buy bullets lately? Healthcare is less expensive!
I’ve got a friend here at work who is a gun totin’ Libertarian and he has been stocking up for the “New Revolution”.
Lately, he’s been complaining that even if you can find bullets on the ‘net, they are triple priced! 
You can buy all the guns you want, but you can’t get the brass. 
America…gotta love it…
Doggone/GA
October 13th, 2009
3:01 pm
“I am no brainiac, but you might want to look again at how #1 spelled peice!”
and peace
@@
October 13th, 2009
3:02 pm
Since jay searched the web for the “most flattering” picture he could find of Orly, it’s only fair we find one of Olympia for Bosch.
Sigh??!??
Mrs. Godzilla
October 13th, 2009
3:03 pm
DNC on Liz
“Last fall, the American people overwhelmingly rejected a radical foreign policy authored by Dick Cheney that alienated our allies, emboldened our enemies, depleted our resources, distracted our focus and made the nation less secure. The Cheneys lost that debate and their approach was deemed a failure. The Cheneys can continue to focus on securing their sullied legacy if they want to. But, the President will continue to focus on securing the country,” said DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan.
“sullied”
Finn McCool
October 13th, 2009
3:04 pm
Conservatve speech for the past month: Healthcare reform is dead. WE killed it.
Hehehehehe. We told you to not underestimate Obama and Rahm.
Yesssss!
Taxpayer
October 13th, 2009
3:05 pm
Normal
October 13th, 2009
3:01 pm
He’s just going about it all wrong. He needs to enlist and volunteer for a tour in Iraq and then hire a bunch of Iraqi kids to go around picking up casings and especially that depleted uranium. That’s some good stuff there.
#1
October 13th, 2009
3:05 pm
you conservative types should get together for an unfunny joke jamboree. one of the lame radio guys could MC using one of their unfunny impressions or funny voices.
what a hoot!!!
Nothing Is Free
October 13th, 2009
3:06 pm
Mrs. Godzilla
**said DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan**
Enough said.
Turd Ferguson
October 13th, 2009
3:06 pm
@@
October 13th, 2009
3:02 pm
YIKES!!
*PUKE*
Taxpayer
October 13th, 2009
3:07 pm
“sullied”
Is that similar to “turded”?
Gale
October 13th, 2009
3:07 pm
Normal, it’s cheaper (relatively speaking) and easier to load shotgun shells.
Bosch
October 13th, 2009
3:07 pm
“”Is this bill all that I would want? Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls. And I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress (taking) every opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time.”
**Sigh.**
Nothing Is Free
October 13th, 2009
3:07 pm
#1
So conservative jokes aren’t funny to you, huh?
Nothing like the open mindedness of the liberal left. LOL!!
What a bunch of close minded babies.
Doggone/GA
October 13th, 2009
3:08 pm
Mrs G…check this out: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
Normal
October 13th, 2009
3:08 pm
Taxpayer
October 13th, 2009
3:05 pm
Taxpayer, I’m sure he would, if it wasn’t for that darned trick knee…
Finn McCool
October 13th, 2009
3:09 pm
mwuahahahahahah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4
We’re Number 37!!!!!!!!!
#1
October 13th, 2009
3:10 pm
Nothing Is Free
WWWAAAHHH! as you shows, you are a big baby.
@@
October 13th, 2009
3:11 pm
TF:
I saw Snowe for the first time a coupl’a weeks ago.
My only guess is that Bosch likes “the stoops”?