The Hill and Arithmetic

It would appear possible that the Senate finance committee will vote on health care reform today. The committee includes 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans. Two democrats, Rockafeller and Wyden have threatened to vote no (both because it is too modest a reform and too easy on insurance companies). Only one Republican, Snowe, might vote yes. The other 20 votes are clear. 11 Democrats will certainly vote yes and 9 Republicans will certainly vote no. So there will be 11 to 14 yes votes.

By my arithmetic, it means that if any one of the three undecided senators votes yes, the bill heads to the floor.

At "The Hill" Jeffrey Young must understand arithmetic better than I do. He wrote

Baucus needs 12 votes, but two Democrats, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Ron Wyden of Oregon, in particular remain disgruntled about his bill. The lone possible Republican supporter, Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), refuses to state her intentions.

If more than one of those three senators joins the panel’s Republicans and votes against the bill, healthcare reform would suffer a tough blow on Tuesday and might not recover.

Given 11 other Democrats and 12 votes required, the resolution can pass with only one of the three votes. Here let me give an example based on the committee's web site which I just checked.

Voting Yes: 12 Senators

Baucus, Conrad, Bingaman, Kerry, Lincoln, Wyden, Schumer, Stabenow, Cantwell, Bill Nelson, Menendez and Carper.

Voting no: 11 Senators
Grassley, Hatch, Snowe, Kyl, Bunning, Crapo, Roberts, Ensign, Enzi, Cornyn and
objectively pro Republican left deviationist John D Rockefeller IV.




My semi namesake Kagro X accepts "The Hill"'s analysis.

In this case, the resolution passes, the bill would heads to the floor and yet more than one of the three would vote no (in particular Snowe and Rockefeller).

It's as easy as 9+2=11 < 23/2. Sheesh.