Democrats Call Healthcare Vote: Sen. Lincoln Says She Will Vote for Debate
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Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) has announced she will vote to support cloture, which will allow debate to move forward in the Senate on healthcare insurance reform legislation. Lincoln joins other conservative Democrats, Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, and Ben Nelson, of Nebraska, in supporting her party leadership’s call for a vote to begin debate on the healthcare insurance reform legislation.
“I will vote in support of cloture on the motion to proceed on this bill,” Lincoln said on the Senate floor.
“Let me be perfectly clear. I am opposed to a new government-administered healthcare plan as a part of comprehensive health insurance reform and I will not vote for the proposal that has been introduced,” Lincoln said. She said she was looking forward to being able to offer amendments.
Lincoln is facing a tough re-election battle next year, and has been under intense pressure from the left to support her party and from the right to oppose healthcare reform altogether. Lincoln said today she will not bow to pressure from any ideological forces, liberal or conservative, and will vote her conscience, according to what she perceives to be in the interests of the people of her state.
Sen. Landrieu, who earlier announced she would vote for cloture, which will allow debate to move forward after Thanksgiving, said on the floor of the United States Senate: “After a thorough review of the bill, I have decided there are enough significant reforms and safeguards in this bill to move forward but much more work needs to be done.” Landrieu has also been under intensifying pressure, after a Republican from her state became the only member of his party in the House of Representatives to vote to pass healthcare reform, and she declined to attend a special free health clinic held in New Orleans.
Neither Landrieu nor Lincoln have given a pledge to vote to pass healthcare reform, and both have expressed consistent opposition to the notion of a “public option”, but Democrats are hopeful the moderates will be persuaded to support some form of compromise proposal regarding the plan, perhaps a “trigger” or the more popular “opt out” clause for states.
The vote has been scheduled for 8pm EST tonight, and Democratic leadership and numerous media sources appear to believe the cloture vote will pass with 60 Democratic votes. There is hope that efforts to bring conservative Democrats on board may also win support from moderate Republicans, who may in some cases be more inclined to support the particulars of healthcare reform than their Democratic counterparts straddling the ideological center. Harry Reid, the majority leader, suggested it would be wrong for “the world’s greatest debating society” to be “afraid” to debate healthcare reform.
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