Bipartisan infrastructure pact clears key Senate vote after breakthrough in talks

[karynnj]

17. I also watched everything in 2009/2010 - probably more completely in the Senate than in the House

I watched most of the Finance committee and the HELP committees hearings. The point I was making was that both a cloture bill to enter debate and one to vote were needed - as well as many other procedural votes by the Republicans to make the passage as difficult as possible.

I agree that the circumstances were very different -- this IS a bipartisan bill, while ACA had no Republican support, even from people like Olympia Snowe who had supported similar things for years. They had no choice to get a comprehensive healthcare bill other than to pass the bill already passed in the Senate in the House - even with flaws.

We actually did have to worry about cloture even in the approximately 4 months with 60 Senators. This meant that we still needed to make sure Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Landrieu were on board. Letting people 60 to 65 buy into Medicare was not an option because of Lieberman and they could not get the public option.

I was posting because someone posted that all they needed now for passing this bill were 50 votes. In fact, they will have to survive at least one more cloture vote to pass the Senate.