Senate votes on health care reform shaped by filibuster
The Senate has voted on its version of health care reform just hours before the start of the Christmas holiday. But even after months of tense negotiating, Senate Republicans are still not pleased with the legislation. We check in with Mary Agnes Carey, senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News, to get the latest before the vote.
We also look back at the road to this Senate vote, and just how much this bill has been shaped by the threat of a filibuster. Once a rare form of running down the clock and making it harder to let the majority party run the show, the filibuster is now used so frequently that some wonder whether or not the U.S. Senate is being held hostage by members who delay, delay, delay. We talked with Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian and author of “Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security – From World War II to the War on Terrorism.” Former Senate Republican Whip Alan Simpson also joins us to talk about the filibuster’s undeniable hold on our lawmakers.
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