Senate Votes to Move Forward on Health-Care Bill: McCain Accuses Reid of Criminal Scheme

Health-care reform legislation cleared a significant hurdle in the Senate on Saturday evening, as Democrats defeated a Republican-led effort to prevent the Patient Protection and Affordability Act, unveiled this week by Majority Leader Harry Reid, from moving to the Senate floor for debate. The vote split along party lines, 60-39. (The bill will almost certainly face a similar procedural fight after debate has concluded before a final vote is taken.)

As it became apparent that Democrats would be able to move the bill forward, Republicans used the debate over the procedure as a forum for tantrums and fear-mongering over details of the bill itself.

Most hysterical was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who referred to the bill’s accounting -- signed off on by a very conservative Congressional Budget Office -- as a criminal Ponzi scheme.

“I think Bernie Madoff went to jail for this kind of behavior,” McCain said. Was he suggesting that CBO Douglas Elmendorf should be sent to the slammer? Or Harry Reid.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who, earlier this week, promised a “holy war” over the bill, today embarked on his jihad, which sounded a lot like the talking points advanced at Tea Party rallies by the astroturfing groups FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity.

“I hope they’re not trying to take us to socialism,” Hatch said.

Debate began yesterday under a cloud of uncertainty regarding whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would be able to rally every single member of the Democratic caucus to yield the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster. Then, mid-day today, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, the last hold-out in the caucus, announced that she would vote to allow the bill to move forward.

Lincoln, who is up for re-election in 2010, has been targeted by progressive organizations for home-state pressure. Progressive groups, such as FDL Action, have run ads in Arkansas prodding Lincoln, a very conservative Democrat, to vote for health-care reform, and FDL Action's Jane Hamsher dangled the prospect of a primary challenge at Lincoln should she prove to be an obstacle to health-care reform.

While announcing, from the Senate floor, her willingness to vote for the procedural motion known as cloture -- the mechanism by which a filibuster is broken -- Lincoln complained of the pressure under which she finds herself. (C-SPAN has the video here.)

“For months now, groups from outside my state have assigned various motives to my deliberations on health care and tried to define the meaning of my vote,” Lincoln said. “According to the last tally, there's been more than $3.3 million worth of media ads that have been purchased in my home state in Arkansas by groups from outside of our state -- certainly none by me -- and most with my name in the ad…These outside groups seem to think this is all about my re-election. I simply don't think they know me very well. I'm focused on my opportunity to influence the final version of health-care reform legislation in a way that most helps my state.”

Lincoln went on to say, however, that she would not vote for the final bill if it contained the public insurance plan currently included in the plan, adding she would fight to reshape the bill to more closely resemble the health-care bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee, which contained no public option whatsoever. Polling by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee suggests that Lincoln's re-election could improve if she reconsiders that position.