hill. we are just hearing from the office of senate majority leader harry reid that they will vote on the bill in the early evening. whsteny hoyer says it will comeo a vote. charlie hurt is a washington bureau chief for the new york post. we ve heard mixed messages. we ve heard from the democrats that they really don t like this bill at the same time steny hoyer s office says he is not too sure that they have the votes to change the bill. is this all talk and no action? reporter: the only thing we know for certain now is when the senate votes this evening on the tax extension they will vote to extend tax cuts for all income groups and they will, you know, vote in favor of the latest proposal on the estate tax.
vaccine, fine, but insurance does not even get you health care. they d have to mandate we doctors accept it for that to happen, and then there d be a revolution. this law is not only unconstitutional, it s also extremely ineffective. jenna: micah, i want to get your comments about between lawsuits and also a change in the dynamic of congress, seeing more republicans come in over the next year for this new congress, how does obama think it will happen if congress changes, how does he think potentially this health care reform can can be affected by switching the character of of congress, michael? what do you think about that? that s an excellent question. as z long as obama is the president, he s going to be able to veto any legislation that came out of the house to repeal the bill. if you take away the individual mandate through the courts while still leaving the rest of the bill in place, then you set up a situation that, essentially, destroyed the private market for insurance. and i
the likelihood of that remains to be seen. earlier today the majority leader, harry reid, said he would be discussing it with his counterpart, mitch mcconnell, he has not heard back. at least one democrat in bernie sanders, the vermont independent, spent eight hours on the floor railing against in this. it should be done and passed by tomorrow morning either way. overwhelming support in the senate, what about the house? reporter: the house remains a bit of a problem. house democrats have said they really want to see some changes to the bill, specifically on the estate tax front. the bill that the senate is going to vote on is for a 35% estate tax on inheritances over $5 million. now, if tax cut package doesn t pass, there would be under the current law a 55% tax on estates over a million dollars. that s a significantly larger tax increase than what s being contemplated in the package, and yet house democrats say it should be somewhere higher than what s going to likely pass the sen
opt to say this could be severed, and he did just rule the individual mandate provision unconstitutional and not the rest of the law. congress, by the way, had no severability clause in the bill which it normally would have, and i believe we have a very good argument that congress would not want this, nor would it pass this law without the individual mandate provision. they didn t provide taxes to pay for it, they didn t provide anything, other way to make this entire legislation work. so at the end of the day, though, whatever judge vincent does or what judge hudson s done, we want to see those decisions. we hope judge vincent s ruling will be favorable to us on all these matters, but at the end of the day it s going to go to the united states supreme court, and it s going to probably be a 5-4 decision. my guess is justice kennedy will be the deciding vote, and it s going to take a year or two to get there, probably no later than the 2011-2012 term of the court that they ll make this
says is putting people at risk and lives have been lost. so we ll wait and see whether he s ever charged with something more including espionage charges which many u.s. senators have said he should be charged with. jenna: great point, gregg. back to you shortly as this story develops. we ll be sure to go live to london if we see julian assange step to the microphones. in the meantime, we have to go back to washington d.c. the senate expected to vote on the tax cut compromise, then it s on to the continuing resolution which would fund federal programs through next september. if that bill is not passed, the government will have no money. how about that? shannon bream is live in washington on this story. so, shannon, what happens if cr doesn t get passed soon? reporter: well, jenna, we start with things that are considered nonessential, things like, for instance, the smithsonian museum that are onbe the federal payroll, gets federal money but not considered