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By an eye-popping count that shows a true commitment to bipartisanship, the House just passed a bill that would repeal the health insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption, 406-19.
However, like everything in Congress, you have to read between the lines a bit. The motion to adopt the closed rule for debate showed the usual partisan tilt, with all Republicans opposed, along with 10 Democrats (Bright, Dahlkemper, Ellsworth, Giffords, Hill, Minnick, Mitchell, Childers, Murphy, Shuler). As the rule was closed to amendments, maybe the Republicans and those 10 Blue Dogs just wanted to offer some perfecting amendments. I’m sure they had them handy. Meanwhile, there was also a motion to recommit, which would have essentially stopped the bill in its tracks, and 165 Republicans voted for that, along with 5 Democrats. So let’s not hold each others hands just yet. The final passage was a free vote to bash health insurers, essentially.
In addition, the AP has a notable sentence in their coverage:
Prospects are dim in the Senate.
UPDATE: Roll call. Fun to see CPAC straw poll winner Ron Paul and GOP “man of ideas” Paul Ryan among the no votes.
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Prospects are dim in the Senate. This is true in the most general sense. Prospects for America are slim and none BECAUSE of the Senate.
It really tells you something when a bill gets over 90% support in the U.S. House of Representatives, and yet a major news service reports “prospects are dim in the Senate.”
Something unpleasant, and something about the current Senate.
it tells me that the vote in the house was for show only.
don’t know for sure on this one, but we’ve seen it happen so many times and it fits the pattern.
Just like the Lords of the Senate, they’ll vote for something which is obvious, just so long as they know it won’t actually go anywhere and upset their corporate paymasters.
Talk about kabuki!
the Senate passed the JOBS bill, so I guess it is still 291 House bills the Senate has failed to consider this year. And lets not forget that the wing media is owned by Rupert Murdoch an Australian who abandoned his native land for riches America and his buddy the Saudi Prince who own 7% of Newscorp which spews such poison and hatred for democracy all across the country. There is no loyalty to the US constitution, if there is more money to be made internationally.