House Gives Final Approval To Health Care Overhaul 25MAR10

In spite of all the lies and hypocrisy of the Republicans we got this done! Thank you God!!!! The first story is from NPR, the second is from the Washington Post.

Capping a bitterly fought battle over the top item on President Obama's domestic agenda, the House gave final approval to the health overhaul Thursday, after the Senate made changes and returned the measure earlier in the day.

The House voted 220-207 for bill, which now heads to President Obama for his signature. No Republicans supported the measure.

Democrats who were eager to put the long fight over health care behind them had hoped a Senate vote would finish the job. But Republicans identified problems with two provisions relating to Pell Grants for low-income students that violated the rules of the budget reconciliation process, which Democrats were using to speed the bill's passage and block a filibuster.

The provisions were stripped from the bill, and the Senate passed it on a 56-43 party line vote. No Republicans voted for the measure, and three Democrats also opposed it.

Under reconciliation rules, the legislation had to get kicked back to the House because of the changes.

Shortly before the Senate vote, President Obama delivered a message to Republicans who said they'll try to repeal his health care overhaul: "Go for it." Obama was at a campaign-style rally in Iowa to bolster support for the new law and explain what it means to average Americans.

A Barrage Of Amendments

The Senate vote followed a nine-hour marathon session stretching past 2 a.m. in which Democrats defeated 29 Republican amendments, any one of which would have sent the legislation back to the House.

Although Obama signed the health care bill into law Tuesday, the package of changes sought by the House still needed to get through the Senate. So Republicans sought to gum up the process by issuing the barrage of amendments.

One by one, Democrats voted down GOP proposals that, for example, would have rolled back cuts to Medicare and barred tax increases for families earning less than $250,000. They also defeated an amendment that would have prohibited federal money for the purchase of Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs for sex offenders. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced the amendment, saying it would save millions of dollars. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) called the proposed change "a crass political stunt."

"There's no attempt to improve the bill. There's an attempt to destroy this bill," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

"The majority leader may not think we're serious about changing the bill, but we'd like to change the bill, and with a little help from our friends on the other side we could improve the bill significantly," answered Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Democrats noted that nearly every reconciliation bill has been subject to last-minute revisions.

Republicans And 'Armageddon'

Obama's trip to Iowa City, Iowa — where as a presidential candidate he announced his health care blueprint — was the first of many appearances around the country to sell the overhaul to voters before the fall congressional elections.

"Three years ago, I came here to this campus to make a promise," Obama told the crowd gathered at the University of Iowa, "that by the end of my first term in office, I would sign legislation to reform our health insurance system."

The president said there had been "plenty of fear-mongering and overheated rhetoric" about the health care overhaul.

"Leaders of the Republican Party, they called the passage of this bill 'Armageddon,' the end of freedom as we know it," Obama said. "So, after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling," he said to laughter and applause.

"But from this day forward, all of the cynics and the naysayers will have to finally confront the reality of what this reform is and what it isn't," the president said.

Threats And Intimidation Tactics

As Congress wrangles with legislative details, discontent over changes to the nation's health care system has spilled over into threats of violence against lawmakers who voted for the overhaul.

The FBI is investigating at least four incidents in which bricks were thrown through the windows of Democratic offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas, including Rep. Louise Slaughter's district headquarters in Niagara Falls, N.Y. And at least 10 members of Congress reported receiving threatening e-mails, phone calls and faxes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference Thursday that intimidation tactics "must be rejected," adding that such behavior has "no place in a civil debate in our country."

Some of the worst threats targeted Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, an anti-abortion Democrat who cast a key vote for the overhaul in exchange for an executive order prohibiting federal funding of abortion. One man called Stupak's office to say he hopes the congressman gets cancer and dies, while a female caller said "millions of people wish you ill" and "those thoughts will materialize into something that's not very good for you."

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said in a statement that while many Americans are angry over the bill's passage, "violence and threats are unacceptable."

"That's not the American way," he said. "We need to take that anger and channel it into positive change."

Later, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor went on the offensive, saying Democratic leaders were "reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain."

Cantor said his own campaign office had been shot at and that he had received threatening e-mails this week, but didn't elaborate. He said he would not release the e-mails "because I believe such actions will encourage more to be sent."

Material from The Associated Press was used in this report

House passes reconciliation bill on 220 to 207 vote

By Lori Montgomery, Shailagh Murray and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 25, 2010; 9:10 PM

Congress passed the final piece of President Obama's landmark health-care package Thursday, the last legislative hurdle in a year-long debate over the issue.

On a 220 to 207 vote Thursday night, the House approved a reconciliation bill that amends the newly enacted health-care law and includes a major overhaul of the student loan program and expansion of Pell Grants. The bill now goes to Obama for his signature.

The House vote was actually its second on the reconciliation bill. It narrowly approved the bill late Sunday night, but it came back after Republicans identified two minor violations of reconciliation rules that forced changes to a provision on student loans.

The Senate passed the reconciliation bill -- with the two small changes -- by a vote of 56 to 43.

Democratic leaders said the provisions that were struck -- from the part of the bill dealing with Pell Grants for college students -- did not significantly affect the student loan program or the overall health-care bill.

"Of all the things they could have sent back, this is probably the most benign [and] easily fixed," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters.

Senators stood and voted from their desks as the roll was called, a tradition reserved for high-profile bills. Before the vote, the Senate observed a moment of silence for the late senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the Democratic champion of health-care reform, who died last year midway through the debate.

Three Democrats voted against the bill: Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas, and Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. All three lawmakers supported the legislation that was signed into law on Tuesday but objected to particular provisions in the reconciliation bill.

In Iowa, Obama dared Republicans to make good on their pledge to run in November's midterm elections on a platform of repealing the health-care overhaul, telling them to "go for it" if they want to campaign on rolling back benefits he said would start taking effect this year.

The return to the House of the reconciliation bill was required after Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin "struck two minor provisions," because they were found to violate reconciliation rules, the complicated set of procedures that protected the bill from filibuster, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), told reporters shortly after 3 a.m.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said one of the deleted provisions was a technical item that he considered "as close to a 'nothing' as you can come around here." The second, more substantive provision would have set a formula for establishing maximum Pell Grant awards. But Conrad said the formula would not have taken effect for two years, giving Congress time to restore it in another bill.

Frumin deemed both measures to be out of order because they had no budget implications, Conrad said Thursday.

For much of Wednesday and into Thursday morning, Senate Republicans offered dozens of amendments, which would have altered central elements of the health-care law, but each one was rejected.

As the Senate staged a series of rapid-fire votes, only a handful of Democrats defected, suggesting that the package of changes would easily be approved in the final vote.

Although much smaller than the bill Obama has signed, the reconciliation bill makes major changes to that legislation to bring the final package in line with a compromise worked out between House and Senate leaders. Federal subsidies will be expanded slightly for people who need help buying insurance, and the coverage gap known as the doughnut hole in the Medicare prescription drug program will be closed by 2020. Seniors who fall into the doughnut hole this year will be eligible for a $250 rebate.

The measure also changes the annual penalty on individuals who do not purchase insurance to at least $695 a year or as much as 2.5 percent of annual income. And it dramatically increases the penalty facing employers who do not offer affordable coverage, to as much as $2,000 per worker.

The most significant change, however, is the method of financing the overhaul. A new 40 percent excise tax on high-cost insurance policies will be delayed until 2018 and replaced by a new tax on the nation's highest earners. Families earning more than $250,000 a year will for the first time have to pay a 3.8 percent Medicare payroll tax on capital gains, dividends and other investment income.

Staff writer Ben Pershing contributed to this report.