The Dems would be claiming that the bill ultimately passed (or at least the main part of it) originated in the House, but really what originated in the House bore no resemblance whatsoever to the final product. In their thinking, the original House bill was not the massive House health care bill that passed just before Christmas.
“the original House bill was not the massive House health care bill that passed just before Christmas.”
To clarify, the House DID move first. They passed a major HOUSE health care reform bill AND a revenue bill prior to December.
The Senate didn’t want to act on the HOUSE version of HCR, but constitutionally, it could not initiate a new revenue-raising bill. So the SENATE health care reform plan simply used the previously passed House revenue bill as a “shell” and substituted a massive health plan. All perfectly legal and described in more detail here:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55081
Note that this procedure was chosen well before Scott Brown was elected. What changed after his election was that the Senate could no longer afford to vote on a revised House version of its bill, as that would be subject to filibuster. But the House didn’t like certain elements of the Senate bill. Ultimately they agreed to vote for it exactly as is, but to simultaneously vote for the “fixes” so that members wouldn’t get in trouble for a “bad” bill.
Thus, the Senate never had to vote again on the “bad” bill and it had more than 60 votes to pass the “fixes”.