After All The Amendments, Still Only One Republican Might Vote for Health Reform

After All The Amendments, Still Only One Republican Might Vote for Health Reform in Politics and Legislation

Last week, lawmakers in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee submitted their amendments to the health care and health insurance reform bill proposed by Chairman Max Baucus.

In total, there are 564 amendments.

For the most part, many of the amendments stand to enhance the bill, but it doesn’t look like any new Republicans are going to jump ship to approve this measure.

It’s still only Senator Olympia Snowe from Maine is the Democrats best chance to give them the elusive 60th vote they need to send the bill to the president.

Politically, Democrats no longer have to appease to all Republicans, just one. Looking at some of the amendments submitted, it’s still all a political game. As an example brought to you courtesy of The New York Times, Senator John Ensign proposed deleting all instances of the word “fee” in the bill with “tax” to paint the health reform bill as a tax increase for Americans.

What’s clear is that there will be no other Republicans in the Senate to vote for this bill. There’s almost no chance at all.

It truly all comes down to Senator Snowe. Well, if Massachusetts allows Governor Deval Patrick to appoint an interim Senator to replace the late Edward Kennedy that would probably work for the Democrats too.

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