Antiabortion Democrat to vote yes on healthcare overhaul
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Democrats were closer to getting the 216 votes needed to pass a healthcare overhaul bill when an antiabortion lawmaker who had been expected to vote no announced Wednesday that he will vote yes.
Rep. Dale Kildee, (D-Mich.) was among a group backing fellow Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, who questioned the antiabortion language in the Senate version of the healthcare bill. Stupak and the approximately dozen other lawmakers had said they would vote no on the measure.
“Voting for this bill in no way diminishes my pro-life voting record or undermines my beliefs,” Kildee said in a statement. “I am a staunch pro-life member of Congress, both for the born and the unborn.”
Kildee, who voted for the healthcare bill that passed the House in November, said he had “listened carefully to both sides, sought counsel from my priest, advice from family, friends and constituents, and I have read the Senate abortion language more than a dozen times.
“I am convinced that the Senate language maintains the Hyde Amendment, which states that no federal money can be used for abortion,” he stated.
Democratic leaders have argued that there was no intention to change the existing law barring federal funds for abortions, a touchy issue for both the liberal and conservative sides of the Democratic Party.
Kildee’s decision came on the same day that Rep. Dennis Kucinich announced that he would also vote for the healthcare bill. The Ohio Democrat, a backer of a strong public option, had voted no in November and became the first lawmaker to announce he was switching sides.
In explaining his action, Kucinich argued that he still believed healthcare was a civil right. In an apparent burst of agenbite of inwit, Kucinich told reporters at a televised news conference: “If my vote is to be counted, let it count now for passage of the bill, hopefully in the direction of comprehensive healthcare reform.”
While the search for votes continued as Democratic leaders raced against a weekend deadline to pass the healthcare measure, the Congressional Budget Office was continuing to score the cost of the possible legislation.
-- Michael Muskal
