September 6, 2013, MichiganVotes Weekly Vote Report

House Bill 4714, Final vote on federal health care law Medicaid expansion: Passed 75 to 32 in the House
To concur with minor changes the Senate made to the House-passed bill to expand Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which implements a key component of the federal health care law (called Obamacare by most people). This House vote sends the measure to the Governor for his signature.

In both the House and Senate, leaders took the unusual step of breaking an informal "Hastert rule" against passing bills over the opposition of most members in the majority caucuses, with the minority caucuses (Democrats) providing the margin for passage. 20 out of 28 GOP Senators and 31 out of 59 GOP representatives voted against the measure; all except one Democrat voted in favor.

Also this week, the Senate declined to reconsider a vote against giving this bill "immediate effect," which means the expansion cannot proceed until early April, 2014, rather than on Jan. 1.

There was only one other roll call vote this week, a unanimous Senate vote on a measure to permit school boards to grant diplomas to Viet Nam veterans who never graduated.

SOURCE: MichiganVotes.org, a free, non-partisan website created by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, providing concise, non-partisan, plain-English descriptions of every bill and vote in the Michigan House and Senate. Please visit https://www.michiganvotes.org.

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