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House Education And Labor Committee Passes Health Care Bill
Two down, one to go. The Education and Labor Committee has agreed, by a 26-22 margin, to pass House health care legislation. I'll pass on details about the breakdown of the vote when I get them. Now all eyes will be on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which won't hold its vote until next week.
Late update: Reps. Jared Polis (D-CO), Dina Titus (D-NV) & Jason Altmire (D-PA) voted with committee Republicans not to move the legislation forward.
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Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) will introduce, in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, an amendment to the so-called Tri-Committee health care bill. The amendment would replace the private health insurance industry with a single-payer national health insurance program.
In effect, the Weiner amendment would substitute Rep. John Conyers' (D-Mich.) single-payer bill, H.R. 676, for the proposed Tri-Committee legislation.
This initiative was inspired in part by Rep. Weiner's meeting with Dr. Quentin Young of PNHP at the time of Dr. Young's testimony in support of single payer before the House Ways and Means Committee in June. It is also a reflection of the grassroots demand that single payer be on the table in Congress.
Let there be a vote.
Let the distinction between current Tri-Committee bill and single payer be made.
July 17, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Last night at about 1am ET I believe Kucinich got an amendment passed on the Labor and Ed Committee to allow any state that wants to actually enact single payer to opt of ILSA (I guess that's the current bill?) But I got an email from him morning saying it was up for a vote again about 9:30am so I don't know what's going on.
If included it may open up a pandora's box for Repub state legislators to move backward and opt out for less reform. If it's part of the bill look for them to mount legal challenges in the years to come claiming the Kucinich exception should apply to any state that wants to move right not just left. For Repubs it's all about the rights of their campaign donors to keeping screwing us.
July 17, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink