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back in 2009 - 2010 when I was ranting and raving about the dysfunctional coverage of the ACA legislative markups and reporting.

I think at the time, there were SIX (primary) Congressional Committees (3 in each chamber), that were doing their own versions from the perspectives of the subject matter each Committee handled. Then each Committee would report out progress on what they had so far and the STUPID ASS media WENT WILD saying THIS IS "THE BILL"... and I was screaming at the TV - "NO IT IS NOT!!!!!"

Due to all those Committees and their versions, a "Joint Conference Committee" consisting of both chambers and members of both parties, had to be convened in order to combine all the versions to have ONE BILL for both chambers to vote on.

Back in 2009, Democrats actually had 60 members (including those who caucused with us like Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman as the (I)s) at the time AND after Arlen Specter switched parties from (R) to (D)) in the Senate. So what was being crafted was generally being done by Democrats and could get through cloture pretty easily with a straight vote (once the instigators like Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman were prodded).

But when Ted Kennedy passed away that summer of 2009, the (D)s would lose the 60 vote majority once he MA special election happened that late fall (won by a (R) to fill the rest of Ted's term), and so the "first part" of the ACA was passed just before the start of 2010 with the 60 Senate votes, but had to be later "revised" using "reconciliation" (like they are doing now with ICE" ), to complete what would be a "second part", where the full name of the final thing became the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act", and it was signed off on by Obama in March of 2010.

Some of my ranting and ravings from back then are probably captured in the DU2 archive, but it might be tricky to find with the search.