House Health Reform Passes With One Lone Republican

Representative Joseph Cao of Louisiana was the only republican to support the bill (read it here), which passed with 220 yeas. Apparently, Organizing for America helped woo Cao. Cao is a progressive republican. He voted to rebuke Joe Wilson and he defended Obama's address to school kids, while other republicans were being ridiculous.

I have new respect for Nancy Pelosi.
Next, the Senate has to pass a bill and the House and Senate bills have to be merged.
Cao read the bill:

More on Cao:

Will he cop to being Obama’s favorite Republican? “I'm looking for real solutions to America's problems and my politics has never been partisan,” Cao said. In other words, he’s not running from the label.
Cao’s willingness to play ball with the White House has a lot to do with his status as the most vulnerable incumbent of any party in 2010.
Cao won his seat in December 2008 in a majority African-American district that had not elected a Republican since 1890—thanks to a serious scandal. The incumbent he defeated, William Jefferson, had been indicted for a litany of corruption charges, leading many Democrats to either stay home or cross party lines in protest. In addition, the decisive vote was not held on the same day as the presidential election—meaning Obama wasn’t the ticket to boost turnout.
House Minority Leader John Boehner distributed a memo entitled "The Future is Cao" while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell touted Cao's election in a January speech as a sign that "a revival is already taking place" for the party.
Cao, for his part, seems to at least agree that the party is in need of a new look.TDB

Read Cao's press release on his vote here.

I have to say, that was a riveting debate today. I watched just about the whole thing on CSPAN and spent a lot of time on Twitter. It's history, you know. Obama's statement:

onight, in an historic vote, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would finally make real the promise of quality, affordable health care for the American people.

The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a piece of legislation that will provide stability and security for Americans who have insurance; quality affordable options for those who don’t; and bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the government while strengthening the financial health of Medicare. And it is legislation that is fully paid for and will reduce our long-term federal deficit.

Thanks to the hard work of the House, we are just two steps away from achieving health insurance reform in America. Now the United States Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation. I am absolutely confident it will, and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year.

Republicans Last Ditch Effort to Stop House Healthcare Bill Calling it Freedom Killer

When healthcare legislation finally passes, may we all look back and fondly remember how republicans such as Michele Bachmann, Mary Bono Mack and Joe Wilson made last desperate attempts to kill healthcare by calling the bill: "job killing," "deficit exploding," "government takeover," "freedom killer."
May we all look back and laugh, while shaking our heads, at how a minority fringe nearly prevented the nation from revamping its healthcare system, how a bunch of obstructionists stood in the way of 36 million Americans getting insured.

Obama Urges Healthcare Bill at the Capitol

Update: Video of Obama's remarks here.

Obama spoke to House democrats today on the healthcare bill. A vote on the bill is expected tonight. The House was awaiting abortion language from Bishops, which they've now received.

DEM LEADERS HOPE FOR VOTE BETWEEN 7 and 9 p.m. COUNT EXPECTED TO BE AROUND 220, WITH 218 NEEDED. Politico

Obama met with the caucus at 11:30 am:

President Obama will meet with members of the House Democratic caucus Saturday in a rare visit to Capitol Hill as he works to push forward proposed health care legislation.
But the contentious issue of abortion is threatening to delay Saturday's scheduled vote on the nearly $1.1 trillion health care bill by the full House of Representatives and possibly push it back to Sunday, according to two Democratic sources.
In a late night development, anti-abortion Democrats scored a major victory by persuading Democratic leaders to allow them to offer an amendment during the House health care debate Saturday that would ban most abortion coverage from the public option and other insurance providers in the new so-called "exchange" the legislation would create, three Democratic sources told CNN.
The prohibition would exclude cases of rape, incest or if the mother's life is in danger.
House Democratic leadership sources said that win or lose, they hope giving abortion foes the opportunity to vote will clear the way for passage of their health care bill. CNN

House members are speaking on the floor live at cnn.com. See the House bill here.

Palin Defends Her Death Panels

It seems to me that political coverage these days is more about entertaining the reader rather than informing them.

Someone like Sarah Palin makes something up, exaggerates, uses hyperbole, connects disparate elements together to make what she thinks is a cohesive thought and then the media writes exactly what she says, without even debunking it. So in a way, Sarah Palin is right. The media is making things up. It's not unfair journalism to say, she's wrong. Her facts are wrong. In fact, it's a disservice to the reader to continue to print falsehoods. The whole idea of a death panel is absurd.

In Politico today, Palin defends her comments about "death panels," but once again, there isn't anything in the story that says what she's saying is simply not true:

“Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system, these ‘unproductive’ members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care,” Palin wrote in a note on her Facebook page.

“The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled ‘Advance Care Planning Consultation.’ With all due respect, it’s misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients,” she continued.

“Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often ‘if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program.’" Read the whole thing here.

I didn't say it was a good defense of herself.

I've read through Section 1233 and I just don't understand where they're getting this stuff. I think they see things that aren't there because they think Obama has this grand plan of socializing the nation. You can read the section here. Search "1233" and read it for yourself.
George Stephanopoulos did a good job of confronting death panels with Newt. Gingrich knows better. Maybe Palin even knows better. When they say things like "death panels" perhaps they're communicating with their audience, perhaps they're exploiting their audience. It makes no sense to someone who isn't inclined to think like they do (irrationally). They're trying to draw this big picture of Obama the socialist.

Media Insists Health Care Threatened

The health care news keeps getting worse for the President, says the news guy. Not really.
What this news report doesn't tell you is that the House bill is already out the window because it relies too much on taxes to pay for health reform. The Senate bill is expected to be the better bill because it's focused more on cost cutting. Also, it's not that important to have republicans on board, just a few, if any, are needed. Besides, I'm confident that democrats will get together on this because if they don't, Americans will be furious.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy