Causecast

by SARAH NELSON, Contributing Writer

House leaders are gearing up for a historic Saturday morning vote on the long-awaited, highly anticipated health care legislation. So much for taking the weekend off. This is the third With the clock winding down and the GOP banded together in strong opposition of the legislation, the House Dems need all the support they can get. In order for the bill to pass the House, they need to acquire 218 signatures from their 258 member caucus. Anything less that the 218 votes needed could result in a delay on tomorrow’s scheduled debate.

House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is confident that the state gubernatorial elections won by Democrats will give them the support needed. Tuesday’s off-cycle elections lends a few extra voting numbers in support of the legislation. Impeccable timing, right?

In a statement made this week about the significance of the bill, Pelosi said, "We have a historic opportunity for us to again provide quality health care for all Americans. It is something that many of us have worked our whole political lifetimes on."

Yesterday, President Obama issued his presidential stamp of approval on the bill, also acknowledging the crucial support of AARP. If those folks are behind the passage of the bill, there’s a pretty good chance momentum is as well.

House Democrats released the current version of the bill last week with 42 pages of amendments and the most significant changes to public health care system since Medicare was created more than 40 years ago. Revisions are expected to continue until the debate is held Saturday morning. The current bill is available for public review, but you better get reading on it soon if you’re going to finish it by Saturday – it’s nearly 2,000 pages long.

The bill itself calls for $1.055 trillion dollars in spending to cover health care cost for 36 million Americans through 2019. The Republicans have released an alternative piece of legislation that would cost only $60 billion through 2019, but covers only three million Americans.

As the Dems gear up for what they hope will be a successful weekend session, the bill opposition does what opposition does best and stands in protest outside of the Capitol. That’s right, the tea parties are back. Their chant? "Kill the Bill." Well, at least they rhyme well.

Washington is full of rumors of hostile government health care takeover and the end of Medicare for seniors and exorbitant tax increase for the rest of us. One thing is certain – Saturday is going to be an exciting day in the nation’s capitol.

Read the full text of the bill (or at least check out the overview) on Open Congress.

Contact your Representative and let them know your position and how you want to be represented. Go high-tech on this one – you can even Tweet your representative!

Photo by Noclip, Wikimedia Commons.