House kicks off debate over health-care repeal

The House meets Tuesday for its first day of debate on a measure that would repeal the national health care overhaul, following a week during which legislative action came to a standstill following the Tucson shooting tragedy.

Debate on the health care repeal bill is expected to begin after the House reconvenes at 2 p.m. The House has set aside seven hours for debate on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a vote on the measure expected to come Wednesday afternoon.

The repeal measure is expected to pass the House on Wednesday but is unlikely to make it through the Senate, where Democrats still hold the majority.

Worth watching will be just how much the tenor of the debate will have changed in the aftermath of the Tucson shootings. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 82 percent of Americans believe the tone of political discourse is negative, with 49 percent saying that it's negative enough to encourage violence.

Over the weekend, there were some signs that congressional leaders have begun adjusting their rhetoric. A post on House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) Web site described the health care law as "job-crushing" and "job-destroying" rather than "job-killing." Democrats, meanwhile, have begun to frame the repeal effort as a "Republican plan to repeal patients' rights."

In addition to Tuesday's floor debate, backers and opponents of repeal were also gearing up for a series of dueling Capitol Hill news conferences. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday afternoon featuring testimony from seven ordinary Americans on how repeal of the health care law would affect them.

Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, meanwhile, is planning a news conference at 3 p.m. at which he and other House Republicans are slated to receive hundreds of thousands of petitions demanding the repeal.

Also expect to see lawmakers speak out on the floor not only on the repeal itself but also the process by which the bill has been brought up; Democrats have argued that Republicans have minimized the minority party's role in the process by not holding any hearings on the bill and by limiting the number of amendments that may be proposed. Republicans have contended that the health care overhaul has already been litigated and that the public stands firmly in favor of repeal; they have also allowed for an amendment proposed by Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) regarding the "doc fix," requiring the committees working on replacing aspects of the law to provide a permanent fix for the formula that sets Medicare payments for physicians.



News From: www.voices.washingtonpost.com