It’s come down to this. According to The Hill, House Democrats are pushing for a vote on Pelosicare this Saturday, possibly at 6pm.
An aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that a vote could happen at 6 p.m. on Saturday, a schedule House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) suggested in reports Wednesday afternoon.
“It could happen at 6 p.m. on Saturday, but no final decisions have been made,” said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Pelosi.
House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said the goal is to finish Saturday evening. It’s not clear at this point, she said, whether the goal is to finish by 6 p.m. or start voting at 6 p.m.
This is the second health care reform bill the Democrats have worked to get out of the House. Their original bill, H.R. 3200 the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, has been tossed aside for Nancy Pelosi’s H.R. 3962 the “Affordable Health Care for America Act” which now sits at 2,032 pages, a gross size for any piece of legislation.
And while the Democrats have demonized Republicans for not offering any alternatives )a laughable notion as members of the Republican Study Committee have offered over 40 health care bills which have been relegated to sit in committee) it would appear as if the Democrats only hump they have to get over is themselves if they want this bill to pass.
According to the Congress Daily section of National Journal:
(Read more after the leap)
House Democrats today are scrambling to secure a compromise with anti-abortion rights moderates in their Caucus as they push for a final vote on health reform legislation by Saturday.
House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter said today the House will vote Saturday on healthcare reform, and that an abortion-language compromise will be “self-executed” as part of the rule for debate. The Rules Committee will meet 2 p.m. Friday to vote on the rule.
A group of anti-abortion rights Democrats met this afternoon in Majority Leader Hoyer’s office.
“We’re further trying to craft language,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., as he left Hoyer’s office. “We don’t want the abortion issue to be the issue that derails universal healthcare reform.”
Anti-abortion forces split openly in the House on Tuesday, further complicating work on a comprehensive health care overhaul and adding to Democratic leaders’ difficulties in getting a bill to the floor this week.
Brad Ellsworth , D-Ind., an abortion opponent, said he approached House leaders about adding language to the health care bill (HR 3962) that would not only explicitly prohibit federal funding of abortions but also guarantee every American access to “pro-life” insurance plans that would agree to refrain from covering the procedure.
Ellsworth said he would withhold his vote for the bill until he is allowed to offer his proposal as an amendment on the floor.
“When you’re going into battle, it’s a good idea to have a contingency plan,” Ellsworth said in a statement. “The bottom line is we’re going to exhaust every avenue to ensure pro-life concerns are addressed in this legislation.”
But Ellsworth’s overture to leadership was quickly condemned by the National Right to Life Committee, which endorsed an anti-abortion proposal by Bart Stupak , D-Mich., that would prohibit any insurance plan receiving federal subsidies from covering abortion, including a government-run “public option.”
“I say, when you’re going into battle, it is always unpleasant to be bayoneted in the back by somebody who said that he was on your side,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the Right to Life Committee. “The Ellsworth language serves no purpose except to assist the pro-abortion House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi , to peel votes away from the authentic pro-life amendment, the Stupak amendment.”
Ellsworth and his aides did not immediately respond, and it was unclear how many votes he could marshal for his proposal.
But the split added a new wrinkle to what has become the most contentious issue confronting Democrats eager to move the health care bill to the floor
The interesting question in all of this is, are House Democrats doing their best in an attempt to bring in Republican votes in an effort to make this a bi-partisan bill? Not likely as with Tuesday’s victories in New York and California, Democrats now have a 79 seat majority in the Lower Chamber. Unlike Harry Reid in the Senate, Nancy Pelosi could care less if a Republican votes for her bill or not. She wants this bill to pass. But I’m willing to guess she didn’t think she’d have to go through Pro-Life Democrats to get her bill to pass.
Sounds like Saturday night is good night for infighting.
