Viagra and other fun with the health-care bill

Senate Republicans, with help from the parliamentarian, succeeded in ensuring that the health-care reconciliation bill will return to the House for a concurring vote.

The Hill has lots of details.

This has to do with changes in student loan programs, which of course had no business being tucked into the health-care bill in the first place and apparently doesn’t belong in a reconcilation package.

Republicans also expended most of the day and night yesterday proposing amendments mostly aimed at removing provisiions in the bill. All of those were defeated, but several Democrats supported a number of them.

One of those, advanced by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, would have prohibited coverage of Viagra for child molesters and rapists, among other things. A motion to table it was passed by a 57-42 vote, with Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska the only Dems supporting Coburn’s measure. Remember “Viagra for sex offenders” as a slogan that may come up in campaigns against those 57 Democrats someday.

The Senate still isn’t done, with more GOP mischief resuming this morning. That’s why it’s known as a great deliberative body.

Viagra and other fun with the health-care bill

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