November 7, 2009

Only One GOPsmacked Fool!

Hatched by Dafydd

Today, the House of Representatives passed the aptly named SqueakerCare bill... "aptly named" for two reasons:

  • It was introduced, and the favorable vote extorted, by Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%);
  • It squeaked by with 220 Ayes to 215 Nays... 218 being the bare minimum needed for passage.

The bill stalled out until Pelosi was forced to allow a vote on the Stupak Amendment, which stripped funding for abortions from the bill (possibly); that amendment prevailed by 240-194 -- much stronger support than for SqueakerCare itself. This may not be the last word on the abortion issue, however:

Democrats were forced to make major concessions on insurance coverage for abortions to attract the final votes to secure passage, a wrenching compromise for the numerous abortion-rights advocates in their ranks.

Many of them hope to make changes to the amendment during negotiations with the Senate, which will now become the main battleground in the health care fight as Democrats there ready their own bill for what is likely to be extensive floor debate.

No word in either the New York Times article or the AP article on whether there was any resolution of the controversy over covering illegal aliens.

(The Republican plan was dismissed by Democrats -- even the Blue Dogs -- in a near party-line vote; only Rep. Tim Johnson, RINO-IL, 68% crossed party lines to vote against the GOP substitute health-care reform plan.)

Every dog has his silver lining, and the bright spot of this bill was that out of 177 Republicans voting (I think that's all of them), the total number who voted for SqueakerCare was... one: Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA, not yet rated). By contrast, 39 Democrats voted against the bill, with 219 in favor, of course.

That means Republican defectors did not hand the Democrats the victory, as I had feared they might; it would still have passed without the vote of the sacred Cao. Thank goodness for pitifully small favors!

Amusingly, one Democrat who voted for the bill was newly minted Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY, not yet rated)... despite the fact that the bill contains numerous provisions that Owens swore during his election campaign he would never support. It took Owens all of eleven hours and sixteen minutes to toss those promises into the dustbin of liberalism.

I'm certain that Conservative (and soon to be Republican) candidate Doug Hoffman is cataloging all such InstaLies for his rematch next year.

Cross-posted to Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 7, 2009, at the time of 11:37 PM

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Today, the House of Representatives passed the aptly named SqueakerCare bill… “aptly named” for two reasons: It was introduced, and the favorable vote extorted, by Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%); It squea... [Read More]

Tracked on November 7, 2009 11:20 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: scrapiron

Hereforth to be known as Squeaker Pigloshi's house of criminals. No respect for any democrat the remainder of my life and definetly no votes.

The above hissed in response by: scrapiron [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 8, 2009 4:41 PM

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