So I was right after all (sort of): the House, with a couple of votes to spare (the vote was 219-212), has agreed to the Senate’s health care bill, thereby avoiding a conference committee and, once signed, making a sweeping overhaul of health care the law of the land. This bill goes to President Obama’s desk for his signature.
Next, the House will vote on, and presumably pass, a reconciliation bill which will then go to the Senate. That ought to be fun. Many procedural shenanigans yet to come, no doubt.
UPDATE: The House has passed the reconciliation bill, which now heads to the Senate. Supposedly, Senate leadership has commitments from a majority of Senators to support that bill, so at least in theory it should all work. We’ll see if that holds up!
With all of the flaws and omissions in the bill, there’s no question about the historic nature of this legislation once signed into law by President Obama. It is almost certainly the most important piece of social safety net legislation signed into law since the Social Security Act of 1965 (Medicare/Medicaid).
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p>The past year and a half wasn’t often pretty, but we just all witnessed a major historical episode.