Congress arrived at the November 2002 elections without a spending plan for 2003. Conflicts within each body and split control--Republicans held the House and Democrats the Senate--proved too difficult to overcome. In place of such a final plan, Congress passed a series of stopgap "continuing resolutions" (CRs) that funded the government at 2002 levels. But after the elections gave Republicans control of both chambers and widened their margin in the House, a final spending plan looked likely. Even so, the Republican leadership needed to rely on CRs to keep the government funded while they put together this final spending package. Progressives and Democrats in general struggled to add what they felt to be needed funding to these CRs. In the vote at hand here, Obey (D-WI) moved to recommit (send back) the latest CR to the Appropriations Committee with instructions to add language to maintain physician payment rates under Medicare at 2002 levels and to raise base payments to rural hospitals to match those of urban ones. Progressives supported the motion because they worried that the CR would underfund health programs and they saw Obey's motion as a way to correct that problem. However, the motion was rejected, 195-215, with two Republicans and no Democrats crossing party lines.