House Committee Passes Obamacare

This happened rather late last night:

In a triumph for President Barack Obama, Democrats narrowly pushed sweeping health care legislation through a key congressional committee Friday night and cleared the way for a September showdown in the House.

The 31-28 vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along party lines, was weeks later than either the White House or Democratic leaders had hoped.

As part of a last-minute series of changes, the committee agreed to cap increases in the cost of insurance sold under the bill, and also to give the federal government authority to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower prices under Medicare.

The new provisions were part of an intensive effort Democrats made in recent days to satisfy the conflicting demands of liberals and conservatives on the panel, unity necessary to overcome a solid wall of Republican opposition.

"We have agreed we need to pull together," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the committee chairman who presided over hours of private negotiations and public committee meetings. Five Democrats opposed the bill.

Who pulled together? No Republicans voted for it and five Dems rejected it. Doesn't sound like "together" is an operative word here.

There are still big problems. The presence of a public option will pretty much ensure that there will be no GOP support and problems with the Blue Dog Democrats. The fact the public option is not closer to a single payer program will create some problems with the far lefties, so this thing is far from done. They may be able to get it out of the House, but I don't think the Senate is going to look too favorably on it.