House Preps Health Care Vote

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Mar 21, 2010 4:30PM

The House vote on the Senate version of President Obama's health care reform bill approaches this afternoon even as House Democrat leaders scramble to make sure they have the 216 votes necessary to pass the bill. The New York Times reported that as of yesterday afternoon, "Ms. Pelosi appeared to be within 8 votes of the 216 she needed to approve the bill, with 19 Democrats still uncommitted." This morning, Dem leaders reported that they have the 216 votes but that it was still "in flux." Republicans will oppose the bill across the board; Rep. Anh Cao (LA-R) was the lone Republican who voted for the first version of the bill last fall said he would oppose this bill because of this version's “expansion of abortion, an absolute moral evil.” The difference in language pertaining to abortion between this Senate version and the original version the House passed last fall has been at the center of debate.

Yesterday, President Obama gave a speech to the House Democratic Caucus (video below) in which he said, "Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country. This is one of those moments.”

And as ugly as things have surely been behind closed doors, they turned even uglier yesterday as anti-health care protesters allegedly spat and hurled racial slurs at black lawmakers supporting the bill. GOP leaders denounced the alleged slurs.

Debate on the bill is slated to begin around noon Chicago time with voting on the bill scheduled for around 5 p.m. The House will vote on both the Senate version of the bill and a package of revisions. Should they pass the Senate version, that bill would go to Obama to sign into law; passage of the revisions package would then send that bill to the Senate.