The House of Representatives has started action on the votes on health care reform. You can watch LIVE STREAMING VIDEO BELOW. This will remain on the front page at the top of TMV until the final votes are cast.
As of this writing, Democrats are confident they have the votes — and it is hard to believe the vote would come up for a vote unless they had the votes:
Democratic leaders expressed confidence Sunday they would get the 216 votes needed to pass historic health care reform legislation in the House, while Republicans promised to keep fighting.
One GOP House member said the party would use “every means at our disposal” to stop the bill from becoming law.
The decisive House vote scheduled for later Sunday could define the success or failure of President Obama’s administration. The vote is expected to be extremely close.
“This is a historic day and we are happy warriors,” Rep. John Larson, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told CNN on Sunday. “We’ve got the votes.”
However, two other House Democratic leaders said some members still were making up their minds, and Republicans vowed a fight to the finish.
Here is live streaming video:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.