Nancy Pelosi's "Victory"

Liberals got a little over 50% of votes for the House Bill. In the Senate, it will take 60% to advance a bill. 17 of the 39 "Blue Dogs" voted for the bill. 39 democrats voted NO and 1 "Republican" voted yes (in exchange for $$$ no doubt) it's not known if the other 22 voted against it on principal, or were given a "pass" when the bill had enough votes to pass. Some others voted for it with the expectations that the Senate would fix it's defects. The House appeased anti-abortion members, by mandating that anyone who is getting support for their premiums can't buy a plan with abortion coverage (public option won't cover). The cost of the House Bill is a little bit more than $1 Trillion, and that is before accounting for the perennial "doc fix," whatever deals were struck to get yes votes, and the mismatch of when "payfors" kick in and when the cost of the bill starts up. Issues that will need to be resolved in melding the House and Senate bills include payfors, individual and employer mandates, public option structure. The blended Senate bill is still waiting on a CBO score which will also include an analysis of the impact that the "Reform" will have on insurance premiums. Lieberman (Democrat) has said he will vote against a bill that has a public option. Not sure how Snowe would vote for a pure public option, but she will vote against the opt out and prefers the "trigger" option. Other Senators opposed to public option include:




• Mary Landrieu (D-LA) 202-224-5824

• Ben Nelson (D-NE) 202-224-6551

• Evan Bayh (D-IN) 202-224-5623

• Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) 202-224-4843



Assuming Lieberman is on board and that Snowe will only support a public option with a trigger, it's going to take a Republican "defecting" to have the bill pass (and that will assume that the Ladrrieu, Nelson, Bayh and Lincoln vote for the bill.

One must wonder is some of these nervous Democrats are willing to risk their job for a bill that received tepid support in the most liberal part of Congress. We'll see.