Senate resumes healthcare debate; Obama to sign antiabortion order
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The Senate resumed debate on a package of amendments Wednesday with the hope of beginning a series of votes on the last step in the grueling political process to overhaul healthcare insurance.
While the Senate works its way through the legislative formalities, President Obama will sign an executive order Wednesday confirming long-standing restrictions on federal funding for abortions. The executive order was a negotiated agreement with antiabortion Democrats in the House to win their support for the Senate version of the healthcare overhaul that Obama signed into law Tuesday.
Under the Senate rules, 20 hours have been set aside for debate and about a third have been used already. Republicans will introduce a series of amendments designed to make their political points for November but the final result is not really in doubt.
“It looks like the Democrats are walking in lockstep,” Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said in an interview with the Fox News Channel.
“We have some good amendments,” Gregg said, conceding that he expected “all of the amendments to be voted down in a party-line votes. That’s unfortunate.”
Democrats too seemed weary of the legislative byplay.
“This is a political exercise for too many on the other side of the aisle,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. Durbin appeared on NBC’s “Today” show with South Carolina’s Sen. Jim DeMint, who is one of the co-sponsors of the GOP’s doomed attempt to repeal the healthcare law that has already passed.
But DeMint insisted that Americans remain angry about the bill and the way it has become law.
Democrats are hoping “that Americans don’t notice this is another power grab,” DeMint said.. “So we’re going to bring these issues up.”
The bill being considered by the Senate was passed by the House on Sunday night and was designed to amend the Senate version of healthcare passed in December. No Republican voted for Senate passage and no Republican is expected to back the House-approved amendments this week.
The House-backed amendments would drop a special Medicaid deal for Nebraska but keep other deals that helped win the original Senate passage. It would also change a proposed tax increase on high-end insurance policies that House Democrats opposed because it would hit union members.
“You can put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday morning during the Senate debate. The phrase is a reference to a frequent refrain used in his failed presidential campaign and was popularized by Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Palin will campaign with McCain, who faces a tough reelection race this year.
The White House announced that Obama plans to sign an executive order later Wednesday that repeats existing federal law against funding abortions except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the woman’s life. The order was negotiated to win over a critical bloc of Democratic House members, led by Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and which includes Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
--Michael Muskal
