SECOND UPDATE: After more than seven hours of debate and voting, the first day of voting on amendments of the health care has moved from day one to day two. 23 amendments have been brought to vote in front of the Senate and none of the attempts were successful in trying to send the bill back to the House of Representatives. Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid asked the Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell what the limit was going to be for amendments to be brought forward. Reid said he doesn’t know what the Senate is trying to accomplish since none of the amendments so far have passed. The Senate is continuing its marathon of voting to try to determine if the bill needs to return to the House of Representatives.
UPDATE: The Senate is taking as many as 25 votes tonight on proposed changes to the House-passed reconcilation bill. The Senate is currently on the 13th vote of the evening and so far every Senate Republican tactic to push the bill back to the House has been voted down by the Senate. The final vote is still expected by the end of the week.
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The Senate has wrapped up a general debate on a parliamentary procedure to the health care bill known as reconciliation today at 4:30pm (CT). Senators are now voting on amendments to the bill. A final vote is expected to occur by the end of the week to see if the fixes to the Bill that the House of Representatives voted in favor of will then be apart of this sweeping health care legislation.
The first vote to table the McCain Amendment passed 54-43. Many of the votes of the other amendments follow this same line of voting. There has been a narrow margin throughout these votes in favor of the Senate Democrats. This was one of many amendments that the Republicans have brought up in order to try to force the law back to the House of Representatives for consideration. These votes are expected to continue until the end of the week, where a final vote will then take place.
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In the health care bill signed into law by President Obama, there are new restrictions and guidelines on any restaurant chain with 20 or more outlets across the nation. The law will require those restaurants to list the Calorie count of all of their items on the menu.
Along with the amount of Calories that the item contains, the menu must also tell the customer what percentage the item is more than a quarter of the Agriculture Department’s 2,000 calorie-a-day recommendation.