Word: billing
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...didn't much matter what Bill Clinton had to say to Senate Democrats when he made his unusual appearance at their weekly caucus lunch Nov. 10 on Capitol Hill. Yes, he talked policy and economic imperatives and all that. But the former President was really there, at Senate majority leader Harry Reid's invitation, as the ghost of 1994 - a reminder of what happened the last time lawmakers took up the cause of health care reform and didn't finish the job. That failure not only dealt a near crippling blow to a young Democratic presidency but also cost...
...that the House has passed its health care bill with a vote of 220 to 215, Democrats on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue feel an even greater sense of urgency. Momentum is crucial for Barack Obama's top domestic priority, and time is his enemy. While Reid still says passage of a final bill is possible by the end of the year, that is looking more and more doubtful. Speaking from his experience of watching the slow death of his health care bill, Clinton told the Senators they must get one to Obama's desk by the State...
...requiring a last-minute deal by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to appease antiabortion Democrats and secure her 5-vote margin - things get exponentially more complicated in the Senate. There the ideological balance among Democrats is closer than in the liberal House, and the rules allow amendments that could send the bill in almost any direction. Most crucially, it will take a supermajority of 60 votes - exactly the number Reid has in his Democratic caucus - to progress in the face of a GOP filibuster...
...hard to overestimate the complexity of Reid's task. His first challenge, which is expected to come as soon as he can obtain cost estimates for his bill from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), will be to get the legislation onto the floor, with a normally routine procedural vote known as a "motion to proceed." While Reid doesn't have his 60 votes locked down for it, the betting is that he will. More uncertain is whether he will find that many to get the bill out of the Senate, which will require a second, more contentious vote...
...calculations, which are supposed to be free of political pressure. And he has been pleading with liberal interest groups to ease up on Senator Joe Lieberman - an independent whom Reid counts as part of his 60-member caucus - over Lieberman's public declaration that he will filibuster any bill that contains a public option. It was Reid who made the risky call to put a version of the public option in the bill that he will be taking to the Senate floor. "He's telling everybody, 'Leave Joe Lieberman alone. I'll handle him. I know Joe,' " says a Democratic...