With a rare late night weekend roll call vote and with the help of all 60 Democratic Senators, the U.S. Senate defeated Republican dissension Saturday night and moved forward with their version of health care reform.
There was little suspense, as a voice vote was taken on the Senate floor shortly before 8:00 PM. The last Democratic holdouts, Senators Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln, had all announced earlier they would vote yes, thereby allowing the health reform bill to move to the floor for the debate and amendment process.
Although the Senate vote was important in helping to inch it along toward passage and President Obama’s signature, this was not necessarily the stand-out news of the day. Many are now balking at what is being called the “Louisiana Purchase,” which was thought to be a $100. million gift included in the bill in order to “buy” the vote of holdout Sen. Mary Landrieu. “I will correct something. It’s not $100 million, it’s $300 million, and I’m proud of it and will keep fighting for it,” Landrieu brazenly told reporters after her floor speech. With Landrieu boldly letting it be known her vote was for sale and was successfully purchased, this could be the beginning of a domino effect, with others lining up for their piece of the pie. Stay tuned!
On the whole, I'd say, when it comes to how American politics is presented by the American "news" media and their pundit-IDIOTS, particularly in the "Age of Obama", it appears they really DON'T know what the H*ll they're talking about about 95% of the time, IMO. Healthcare reform was declared "D.O.A. by most of those shameless and BRAINLESS windbags as soon as the economic meltdown began to show_and they've declared it "DEAD" pretty much every day since that time.Luckily people LIKE ME pay those fools NO MIND nearly 100% of the time…smh. There WILL be Healthcare reform in America under Obama.