As the health care bill works its slow way through the Senate, it’s somewhat sobering to note that the very first substantive votes there will finally occur tomorrow. We’re getting votes on:
- Mikulski Amdt. #2791 (Women’s Medical Care) as amended,
- Murkowski Amdt. #2836 (Women’s Medical Care),
- Bennet (CO) Amdt. #2826 (Medicare), and
- McCain Motion to Commit (Medicare).
All of these require 60 votes to be adopted. The first two will be voted on at 11:45 EST, and the last two will be voted on at 14:45 EST.
Of course, the next question is what these amendments actually do. Sen. Blanche Lincoln has posted the text of various amendments on her website. If it weren’t for this, we wouldn’t know the full text of the Murkowski and Bennet amendments until the Congressional Record comes out early tomorrow morning.
(As for the McCain motion, it sends the bill back to committee with various instructions to make changes to it. It can be read here (PDF), but its language is really unimportant—sending the bill back to committee would probably just kill it for good.)