The House’s healthcare reform bill passed yesterday, 220-215.
It still needs to be passed by the Senate, but considering nothing like this has passed through the House in 40 years, it’s reason to be excited.
Among other things, the version of the healthcare reform bill that passed would:
-Expand Medicaid eligibility to anyone below 133% of the federal poverty line (FPL).
-Allow people between 133-400% of the FPL to purchase the “public option” government insurance plan.
-Require people to get insured (this was favored by Clinton and opposed by Obama in the primaries and seemed to be the main point of disagreement in their debates)
-Not allow insurance companies to reject people based on pre-existing conditions
-Kill your grandma (no not really)
CBO estimates it would reduce the number of uninsured by 36 million.
A yay vote came from 1 Republican, Joe Cao of Louisiana. Thanks, Joe. I’ll drink a cup of you in your honor. I hope you wont be offended that it’s instant.
The NY Times published an analysis of the 39 House Democrats who voted nay. They emphasize that a lot of them tend to be in districts where they either won narrowly in their last election or their district favored McCain in 2008. There are a few exceptions to these conditions, however, such as Dennis Kucinich (who only supports single payer healthcare), Brian Baird, John Barrow (Blue Dog) and Artur Davis.
