Obama Plans Easter Resurrection for Health Care

The health care reform bill was, in a sense, born on Christmas Eve, and now Barack Obama’s hoping to resurrect it just in time for Easter, writes John Dickerson. According to the plan Obama sent congressional leadership, the Senate would vote through changes to its bill using reconciliation, holding the vote just before the Easter recess so that Republicans will be cutting into their vacation if they try to delay it with parliamentary tactics.

But first, the House will have to approve the Senate bill, and its members are loathe to go first, Dickerson writes at Slate. Some fear the Senate won’t do its part, or that Senate Republicans will manage to attach a “poison pill” amendment, killing the bill. But Rahm Emanuel is pushing Nancy Pelosi anyway, and the administration’s confident she’ll be able to marshal the votes for the bill. (More Barack Obama stories.)