House debates and votes on health care reform bill

This is the day -- the House debates and votes on the Democratic health care bill. And the world is all a-twitter -- or something silly like that. Passing the rule was the first breaking news for The Washington Post.

News Alert
1:20 PM EST Saturday, November 7, 2009


The House has passed the rules of debate for proposed health-care legislation, formally starting the countdown toward a roll call vote. The House will now debate the bill for at least the next five hours, with a final vote likely this evening.

For more information, visit washingtonpost.com - http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/PSLW3N/CCZ5E/Z6JDIZ/U6KZFF/841RD/FW/t

The news alert went out at 1:20 p.m. Eastern or 12:20 Central. I started the archivist search at about 3:30 p.m. Central. The phrases I tried out for searching were:

"House health" was too broad. Adding "votes" and "reform" seemed to narrow the search too much. So I went with "house health care."

The first search produced 1500 messages. The first messages were from 10:28 a.m. So they were immediately before the House went into session, and I will continue the search until after the vote is taken.

This search was chugging along, and I happened on #hcr. It was being used by many people in messaging about the health care bill. So I started a search for "hcr." The first message found was at 7:16 p.m. Central, and was the first of 1500 messages found on that first pass.

The Post did breaking news again when the debate stopped and the House began voting.

News Alert
10:57 PM EST Saturday, November 7, 2009

House ends debate, voting begins on health-care reform bill

After a day of debate and a last push from President Obama, the House is set to take its final vote on health-care reform legislation.

For more information, visit washingtonpost.com - http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/QJTXP3/DV7WB/FY0TBR/IF0GRC/3AFQZ/PJ/t

And they announced passage of the bill.

News Alert
11:14 PM EST Saturday, November 7, 2009

House passes landmark health-care reform bill, 220-215

The House has passed sweeping health-care legislation, hours after President Obama visited the Capitol to make a personal closing argument for his most important domestic policy initiative.

For more information, visit washingtonpost.com - http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/U38ITL/GZ4YF/BWGP1Q/6W3JWG/9WLNB/FW/t

Apparently the House was moving too fast for The Post since The Post did not do breaking news for the passage of an amendment denying use of funds for abortion.

I am watching the tweets flow by. Even after a couple of hours the messages are still going -- though they are slowing a bit.

Messages to Representative Cao, the only Republican to vote for the bill, jumped from 101 last Sunday to 1601 tonight. He is getting a lot of 'love' from the health reform supporters.

This is the story The Washington Post produced the next day.