All amendments in the bill were blocked. By both sides of the isle to ensure passage…keep up!
The senate is weird so I might have this wrong but I think what happened was:
-The original bill had the $35 cap in it
-When going through the reconciliation process (voting on a bill with only a majority needed to pass), all the provisions in the bill need to relate to the budget and/or debt. The Senate parliamentarian decides what provisions would or wouldn’t meet that criteria after hearing each parties argument about it
-The senate parliamentarian agreed with republicans challenge that the $35 cap wasn’t able to be in the reconciliation.
-The reconciliation bill now moves to the floor without the $35 cap
-We now enter the “vote-a-rama” stage where any senator can propose amendments to the reconciliation bill. However, in order to get in the bill, it needs to get 60 votes instead of 50.
-Many amendments were put up, some from republicans trying to remove audit funding or oil industry taxes. One from Bernie sanders essentially trying to bring in provisions that were in the original build back better bill negotiations last year. Ultimately, they all failed because democrats agreed that they wouldn’t vote yes on any of the amendments as it could risk any of the 50 votes defecting on the final vote to pass it
-Since the insulin cap was originally attempted to be in the bill, Schumer did a last attempt to still get it in with the 60 votes. They knew there was some bipartisan support with it because Susan Collins even had a cosponsored bill released a month or so ago with a senate democrat for a cap.
-The vote narrowly failed, something like 57-43 maybe.
-The reconciliation bill ultimately passes with no amendments in it.
So yea, all the amendments failed but that specific one had different context to it and probably was the only one that surpassed 50 yes votes (I didn’t confirm but it would make sense from what the plan was).
Edit- to adjust the last paragraph, the sanders one was everyone (cause democrats agreed no and all but insulin and GOP just didn’t like his amendments), the GOP ones were probably 50-50 (Dems agreed to vote no on unison, GOP wanted those amendments in), and that insulin one was the closest to succeeding (Dems and some GOP wanting the measure and it being in the original deal Schumer and Manchin agreed to)
