Some House Democrats face questions about House bill positions; outside groups defend vulnerable 'yes' votes

Democrats are still taking issue with particular votes of other House lawmakers on health care reform. Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is taking a hard line against the people in her caucus she thinks "threw me under the bus," Politico reports. Rep. Xavier Becerra faced criticism from Pelosi after he questioned her on giving up too easy on supporting a "robust" public option and on Monday as well for other votes. At that time, Pelosi questioned him on the seven members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who voted for inclusion of an abortion amendment "before final passage of the health bill, even after she had acceded to the CHC's wishes in preventing an immigration amendment from being considered on the floor" (Allen, 11/18).

In the meantime, groups are getting ready to release a multimillion dollar advertisement campaign to defend vulnerable House Democrats who helped pass the health care overhaul, Roll Call reports. "The largely labor-funded counterpunch comes after anti-reform groups surprised Democrats with a similarly well-funded and highly concentrated strike right after the House vote on Nov. 7." Even Republican Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, of Louisiana, who voted for the House reform bill, will get help from the groups, Roll Call reports (Newmyer, 11/18).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.