Health care bill passes House 219-212; Halter, Lincoln send out releases

219 Democrats pushed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act through the House last night, while 34 Dems and all 178 Republicans voted against it. In Arkansas, Congressmen Berry, Boozman and Ross voted against it while Snyder voted for it. In the wake of the vote, Sen. Lincoln sent out a press release praising the vote, stating:

Even with its imperfections, this bill represents the most morally and fiscally responsible approach to health reform. I have fought for health care reform to reduce costs for small business owners and the self-employed so they can reinvest the savings in their companies and hire more workers.

I am pleased that we will now force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, preserve Medicare for future generations and reduce the deficit by more than one trillion dollars over the next 20 years. I now look forward to ensuring that Arkansans benefit the most from health insurance reform.

I expect the misinformation campaign about the new law to continue and I also expect many of the attacks will be targeted against me, starting with my position on additional changes contained in a procedure called Budget Reconciliation. I cannot support the Reconciliation package devised by the House which includes matters unrelated to health care and employs a legislative process that wasn't subject to the same transparency and thorough debate that we used in the Senate.

Primary challenger Bill Halter put out his own release stating "I urge Senator Lincoln to join me in putting Arkansans first by supporting passage of this bill as soon as possible."His statement, in part:

[Halter] applauded the U.S. House of Representatives in passing health care reform and encouraged the Senate and Senator Lincoln to immediately pass the reconciliation bill.

“Washington is broken and it's past time to put the needs of Arkansans ahead of special interests,” said Halter. “While this bill is not perfect, and it could have been improved with more decisive action by Senator Lincoln, it will prevent people from being denied health care insurance due to pre-existing conditions and it will begin to provide more than 450,000 uninsured Arkansans the health care they need. At the same time, the legislation will rein in health care costs and will reduce our national debt. And it helps our seniors who need it most by ending the donut hole in prescription drug coverage and improving Medicare solvency.”

Mike Ross's full release on his no vote is on the jump. Folks at the Clinton School will get thoughts from the left this morning from MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow, who's scheduled to speaker there at 9:00 this morning. It's free if you're in the vicinity in downtown Little Rock.