Will the health care bill pass by a “simple majority” (reconciliation) ?”
WASHINGTON, March 14 (Reuters) – White House officials on Sunday confidently predicted quick final passage of healthcare reform but a top Democratic vote-counter said the party still needs to line up more support in the House of Representatives. With President Barack Obama’s sweeping healthcare overhaul headed for a final House vote this week, House Democratic Whip James Clyburn said Democrats were short for now of the 216 votes needed but he was confident they could find them. “We don’t have them as of this morning, but we’ve been working this thing all weekend, we’ll be working it going into the week, I’m also very confident that we’ll get this done,” Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat who is entrusted with lining up the party’s votes, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Senior White House adviser David Axelrod and spokesman Robert Gibbs appeared on a series of Sunday morning talk shows to say the stalled overhaul, Obama’s top legislative priority, was headed for approval in the House thi
President Barack Obama today asked Congress to hold a simple-majority vote on healthcare reform legislation in the next few weeks, and he hinted that Democrats should use a controversial procedure called budget reconciliation if needed to overcome Republican filibustering. Although the House does not allow filibustering, the Senate does. In a filibuster, lawmakers resort to endless debate or procedural motions to keep a bill from coming to the floor for a vote. A Senate filibuster can be overcome only by a 60-vote supermajority, which Senate Democrats lost when Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown in January, making him the 41st Republican in the Senate. The Senate Republican bloc of 41 has helped create the current impasse in the healthcare reform saga. Before Brown’s election, both the House and Senate had approved similar reform bills that would have extended coverage to millions of Americans by expanding Medicaid eligibility and providing subsidies for individuals and famil
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