own. they re calling it landrieu-light. it is named for democratic senator from louisiana, mary landrieu is is trying to find a fix for the senate in the health care law. however this would not allow insurance companies to continue selling policies that don t meet obamacare standards. today the house democratic leader nancy pelosi ripped the republican upton plan. this is a conversation that s not an action but it does, does violence to the bill in other ways that idea that it was helping consumers was sort of the trojan horse whose underbelly is poisonous with, in terms of the health and well-being of the american people. reporter: the president has threatened to veto the upton bill even though it is not clear it would come up for a vote in the united states senate. bottom line, supporters of obamacare feel like this bill could destroy the health care
hearing what voters say are confusion, chaos, stories about cancellation. building panic amongst their constituents and overwhelming desire of democrats is to be seen going on the record and doing something about this. there s talk about whether that means putting exactly what the president talked about today into legislative language that fred upton, the republican from michigan is offering. the question tomorrow will be how many democrats will peel off and vote for this republican plan in the house tomorrow. at the same time, mary landrieu, more moderate democratic senator from louisiana who wants to press ahead with her own plan in the senate, jeff me are. kley, dianne feinstein. open question about whether they would get a vote there. let s say fred upton passes the house and mary landrieu passes the senate. at least one of those is a
unfortunately, it does not. so as a public service, we have compiled this question and answer reel, with the author of that bill, congressman fred upton of michigan, so that he can correct anyone who thinks somewhat falsely this bill does what it says it does. the upton plan would allow people to keep the health plans they like. the gentleman needs to read our bill. it doesn t say that the insurance companies must sell those policies. we allow people to keep the insurance they used to have. it doesn t mandate the health insurance policy has to be granted again. joining us now is sally cohen, an activist and columnist with the daily beast and salon.com. michael steele, who, of course, is an msnbc analyst and former rnc chair. and in new york is jonathan alter, msnbc analyst and author. jonathan, let s just make this clear. the upton vote today was basically the 47th attempt to
president, they have had years to plan for this. this isn t, you know, this isn t a disaster that just potentially, i agree. look, here s something that s really revealing. there were 36 house democrats today who voted in districts from which obama won 55% or less. 28 of those 36 voted for the upton plan. there were 156 districts where he won 55% or above. only 11 of them voted. these are the vulnerable democrats beginning to distance themselves, voting for something they probably knew would never happen. i m not sure all of them would have voted for it if they thought it could. that doesn t take into account the senators who are worried about this who are up for re-election. generally, second term presidents don t do well, they generally lose seats in the midterm election of their second presidency. they were thinking after the shutdown you know what, we might actually gain seats because they were riding so high. now they have totally flipped on that. we were talking about the
it that you want to do? today the conservative editorial board of the wall street journal said republicans have an opportunity to poach the health care issue that liberals have dominated for decades instead of a backward looking promise to let americans hold on to what they had. republicans could offer the opportunity to buy a new plan that they like. and then, of course, the republicans on the hill, all they talked about all day was just repealing obama care. yeah. look, you don t poach an issue by doing nothing. and i think we re seeing the one silver lining to all those re, re, re-repeal efforts. and they don t have the alternative. we know this is not about fixing, doing the technical improvements that congress used to do. this is about sabotage. you re talking about repeal, you re talking about not any longer allowing kids up to the age of 26 to stay in their parents policies. popular stuff that s already been working in this law. that s absolutely right. those things, wh