Countdown to Sunday

The vote count looks promising for Democrats as the Healthcare Reform Bill is scheduled for a vote in the House this Sunday in what has become a lesson in procedural politics. “The question now is whether these last-minute conversions will be enough to offset a collection of wavering Democrats who could trade their ‘yes’ votes for ‘no’ votes in the final round of a yearlong fight. Democrats opened the day on an up note after the Congressional Budget Office unveiled its initial cost estimate for the House-Senate compromise. The government’s official scorekeeper put the cost of subsidies and new programs created by the bill at $940 billion over the next decade and predicted the bill would save the government $138 billion during the same period — a projection that seemed to buoy fiscal conservatives. Democrats also said the bill is fully paid for and would cover 95 percent of all Americans. Hours later, a pair of Democrats who voted against the House bill — retiring Tennessee Rep. Bart Gordon and first-term Colorado Rep. Betsy Markey — said they would vote yes this time around. That came on the heels of another announcement of support from a frequent critic of the legislation, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez.”