Is the deal done? Are we about to finally cross the goal line?
There was an interesting snippet in a piece in POLITICO about the progress of the reconciliation bill in the House of Representatives.
Dems still working on votes.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said Monday night after the Democratic caucus meeting that he thinks Democrats have the votes to pass the bill.
POLITICO retracted the original title and subject of the piece, which was Hoyer:Dems don't have the votes.
If I didn't know any better, it would seem that the House as of last night DO HAVE the votes to pass the bill.
What is most interesting is that the story originally was titled Hoyer: Dems don't have the votes, but the folks over at POLITICO ended up essentially retracting the title and the subject of the story, inserting an asterisk on the first paragraph with an explanation at the bottom that read:
*UPDATED: Hoyer did not say that Dems don't have the votes as previously reported. The first paragraph and headline have been changed to reflect that.
The whole point of the article revolved heavily around the part that they ended up having to retract, which was that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that the votes weren't there.
Now, James Clyburn is a senior Representative in the Democratic caucus, but John Larson is the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
If Chairman Larson would go as far as to say that the votes are there to pass the bill and then POLITICO needing to retract a story where Leader Steny Hoyer had falsely been reported to have said the votes weren't there yet, then I think we can get a little bit of a glimpse of what is actually going on behind the scenes.
With the knowledge that the House now has the votes, it should be no surprise that the only thing being talked about today is congressional procedure such as "Deem and Pass".
The House has moved on from a successful whipping process and now debating the best way to move forward. I believe this much is obvious at this point. If the bill is released tomorrow and Dems allow the 72 hours promised to review the bill, then the vote will come Saturday.
Even if you don't like the bill, we are making history yet again in 2010. After many tries in the last century, we've finally managed to take a huge first step in a process to reform our medical system. In a few days, young people everywhere previously unable to be covered will be able to get insurance under their parent's umbrella, people who suddenly got sick would no longer get dropped from their insurance plans, and the process to build the exchanges will begin.
As much as the process was botched, the President has come through and when the bill is signed into law, as a show of force against a fierce Republican opposition, we should give the President credit where it is due and tout the real benefits people everywhere will reap from the bill's passage.