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You may think that House Democrats warning that the health care bill is in a lot of trouble reflects nothing more than posturing. Why is Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) saying in the above clip that the bill might go down on the first pass and then return to the House before it passes?
Consider the math.
I hadn’t remembered until CQ reminded me today that Robert Wexler (D-FL) resigned his post at the end of the year to become the head of a Jewish nonprofit group. Wexler was one of the 220 votes in favor of the House bill in November, with 215 opposed. Wexler’s replacement won’t be in place until April, but by then, Neil Abercrombie will have resigned to run for Governor in Hawaii.
With respect to the Stupak amendment, at least two members, Bart Stupak and Republican Joseph Cao (R-LA), are definitely not going to vote for the bill if anything less than their amendment is included. Therefore, without even getting to the other major issues, the House is at 217-217 on the bill. Say Stupak is satisfied; Joseph Cao is NOT a reliable vote on the second pass. At BEST, you have 218 votes, without going into all the other flashpoints. So, any one member can blow up the bill.
Maybe Nancy Pelosi can flip some of the no votes, especially with the more conservative Senate bill being the base, and the public option likely dead. But I have explained repeatedly that those Democrats who voted against the bill the first time around have every political incentive to vote against it again. Heck, the Larry Kissell poll from yesterday is enough to prove to people that voting no is the right political move, although I question both the poll and the logic behind that thinking. My point is that there will not be more than a small handful of no-to-yes flips available.
But there’s a HUGE universe of yes-to-no flips that are at least possible. Anthony Weiner yesterday said he would vote against the Senate bill. There are clearly others out there, like Peter DeFazio. There were 60 members vowing to vote against a bill without a public option. There are 190 members demanding the elimination of the excise tax on high-end insurance plans. Virtually everyone in the Democratic caucus has some problem or other with the bill.
Now maybe all of those problems get ironed out. But even if every single provision does, just with the hardline abortion issue unresolved, you’re at 217-217. Simple math dictates that the bill is seriously threatened.
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Via HuffPo
White House, Dems, Planning Massive Re-Sell Of Health Care After It Passes
Interesting now then who can Obama bribe with a huge federal project to get their vote is the next question?
The bill will become even more conservative in order to reach more YES votes on a bill that should be killed anyhow.
forwantofanail.com
There ya go DD, the fix is in. They’re already planning what to do after they pass a bill they know damned well isn’t liked.
Damn I hope they pay a huge price in November. If we don’t teach the national Democratic Party that our votes can’t be taken for granted anymore, then we have no right to bitch when Democrats pass this kind of shit.
Yes, teaching them the lesson probably means huge Republican wins. So what? Are we all that afraid of Republicans that we won’t make our Democrats act right? They’ve learned the lesson well that they can currently count on our votes no matter what because we’re askeered of teh Republicans. Keep reinforcing that lesson and you keep getting these kinds of Democrats.
It’s time for a REAL change America.
It’s bad enough the Dems can’t pass a real health care reform bill. What’s worse is they make complete assholes out of themselves trying to get a bad bill passed. What a sorry spectacle.
They’re merging with the Republicans in all but name. Who cares? Vote for a real leftist if there’s one on your ballot.
Can the DEMS maybe have a plan to pass the current bill and then in say June or July put a PUBLIC OPTION in by reconciliation?
Also using reconciliation for the EFCA legislation that we desperately need
Your premise and conclusion are befuddling.
The economy is shot to hell, unemployment is through the roof, Wall Street and bankers have looted the treasury, and ALL republicans contributed to the above. Many Democrats did not.
So explain to me: How does your suggestion of a circular firing squad represent “real” change, in your mind?
Now Obama wants to sell healthcare? But when we could have used his help to get public support for the Public Option Obama couldn’t be bothered.
No wonder
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/mass-senate-race-gibbs-ac_n_421750.html
Gibbs doesn’t know why some segment of political observers don’t seem motivated I assume Gibbs means us .
Gibbs we told you there would be a price for screwing us on Healthcare for sending more troops to war, for doing nothing for people loosing there homes and their jobs.
If the possibility of loosing Ted Kennedy’s seat in as Dem Friendly a state as Massachusetts doesn’t scare you well trust me the media will notice every GOP talking head will weigh in.
And you know what they all will say?
If the GOP can win in Massachusetts the GOP might take the Senate and the House this year.
Dear FDL,Do you have any thoughts on this?
Being a federal government retiree, I suspect that I am one of those who will get hit up for a “Cadillac” health plan. The figure of a 40% tax is floating around.
Think about the logic of this: Create a healthcare bill that taxes retirees (who need better healthcare) and the most Democratic slice of the voting public (organized labor) for the benefit of the uninsured, while fatcats continue to rake in more and more. This should be called The Democratic Self-Immolation Bill of 2010.
As bad as this bill smells, it should be allowed to die. The best thing for the Democratic leadership, if they truly want a good healthcare bill, is to make the best bill possible, or maybe an extension of Medicare for the uninsured, paid for by a tax on the richest, and then allow the Repubs and Blue Dogs to kill it. At least then the battle lines are drawn for the midterms. With the crap that they’re serving up now the Dems’ leadership is committing mass suicide for the party.
Two can play that game. Progressives can lean on the reps most vulnerable in November if it passes and peel off votes in the other direction.
I’ll just editorialize for a moment on why this bill should be in trouble. It sucks. It’s not going to help the people it is supposed to help, and that’s what progressives are supposed to be about. There are 80 members of the House Progressive Caucus. If even half of them vote against this bill, it’s done. That should be some serious bargaining power. Yet, as we’ve seen for months, they’re getting punked.
Someone wake me up when this nightmare is over.
Circumstantial evidence but I take the fact that the WH has been making (somewhat) conciliatory noises during the past few days, talking about a national exchange, etc. as suggesting they think the bill is in trouble. The moment they believe passage is guaranteed they’ll go back to kicking progressives in the teeth.
The election to fill Ted’s seat is sooner even if the Dems win a close race in that state means all those Blue Dogs Rahm recruited had better worry that Yes We Can…stay home this election.
Best news I heard all day.
Not likely to happen. It has been mentioned that passage of the bill will further strengthen the hand of the big insurers. They wiil have money to burn in opposing any challenge to the gift they’ve just been handed.
Their frequent willingness to capitulate suggests that for most, their “progressive” stances are for marketing purposes only and not the result of firmly held convictions.
We’re better off with properly labeled Rethugs than phony Dems.
First the Dems pass NAFTA with Rahm’s help and now this Healthcare bill with Rahm’s help. Just think Rahm could be behind the Dems losing big in elections twice!
What a Genius!/s
HOW ABOUT THIS IDEA TRUTHSEEKERS,THE SOCIAL SECURITY TAX IS CURRENTLY CAPPED AT 90,000 DOLLARS.
WHY DONT WE HAVE THAT SAME TAX KICK IN FOR THOSE INDIVIDUALS AT 250,000 AND ABOVE TO PAY FOR HEALTHCARE FOR ALL,AND ALL MONIES LEFT OVER IS USED TO SHORE-UP SS AND MEDICARE.
If you expect “real” change in one election cycle, then my suggestion won’t make sense.
How’s that expectation working out right now, btw? We just elected a Democratic President with the largest Democratic majorities in the two Houses in decades and we get…. Republican like policies? If you’re ok with that, I suggest you keep right on rewarding the current Democrats with your vote.
I would hope we send a message that we want a new kind of Democrat, a Democrat that only gets progressive votes when they act like… a progressive (imagine THAT?). If they learn that running corporate Democrats in national elections means they lose more often than they win, then they’ll adjust (or someone will adjust it for them). If we keep rewarding the corporate Democrats with our votes because we’re askeered of teh Republicans, then we’ll keep getting corporate Democrats. And in that case, we have no right to bitch when said corporate Democrats pass shit like this POS health care bill. Or when they pass a stimulus full of tax cuts instead of.. you know real stimulus (if tax cuts were stimulative, our economy would be on fire after the least 8 years). Or when they pass financial regulation that… well, you watch, it’ll likely regulate big finance about like I can wear a size 30 waist jeans.
Nope, if we keep voting for those Democrats (just cause they’re the evil of two lessers on the ballot), then we have no right to complain when they do exactly what they’re doing.
I’m only going to vote Blue America candidates thats my third party.
We are for that everyone here its the Dems who took that off the table they prefer to tax healthcare plans rather than go after the rich.
Agreed. Of course if the present cock up was a real health care reform attempt and not some product of a corrupt WH in collaboration with InsurPharma there may well have been the votes needed. Frankly I hope that they kill this damn bill.
Oh Bummah! and his clintonite cronies had absolutely no intention of allowing real healthcare reform to happen. They are more interested in garnering vast quantities of money from big business than they are doing a damn thing for the benefit of the citizenry.. as can be seen from the frantic “bail out” of the big banks and Insurance companies while ignoring the unemployed and homeowners in danger of foreclosure.
Oh Bummah! is a whore for big business as were his five predecessors.
Yep, I’ve done it for 30 years but I’m finished casting lesser of evils votes. I will not vote for a Republican but unless there is a Dem choice I fully believe in or a good independent candidate I will leave that line on the ballot unmarked.
I had my first dry run of this new strategy last November when the Democrats nominated a POS for Virginia governor. I just couldn’t NOT vote, just don’t have it in me, so I voted for all the other stuff on the ballot and wrote in “OldFatGuy” for Governor.
Alas, I came up a bit short.
How does giving Bush a third term help us? Can you think of a single reason why we should vote for Obama?
The GOP will be worse? How can they be worse they would send more troops to Afghanistan, they would give the bankers more money, they would do less to create jobs?
Hey, don’t talk bad about my favorite dual-citizenship guy.
There are some who say that this will be the scenario and conditions at 2010 and 2012 that will catapult these rethuglicants back into power,but Im starting to think that these tea-baggers will have a lot to say about that.STAY TUNED!
Because those people who make 250,000 and above give money to congress so they will not be taxed.
Yes, it would suggest that.
Dual party guy Rahm is the best GOP Plant in the Dem party ever!
Would it surprise anyone here if we found out Rahm went hunting with Cheney? Read “My Pet Goat with Bush? Ate Big Macs with Rush?
We should demand the Rahm renounce his Israeli healthcare!
It would shock me to find out Rahm ate Big Macs.
Maybe he smokes a big fat stinker every so often with Rush?
Speaking as someone who has never belonged to a political party, I think there are good and bad Republicans just as there are good and bad Democrats. The problem is that both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have gone heavily corporatist, so there really isn’t a distinction between them in many ways. I think the question to ask about a politician is whether they are corporatist or non-corporatist rather than their party being the most distinguishing characteristic. Like look at Coakley in MA who has exposed herself as a complete establishment corporatist who has flown to a DC fundraiser with lots of healthcare lobbyists.
Generally speaking Ds and Rs are pretty cheap dates. Politicians make their stash with volume. Much cheaper than paying taxes.
WTF! Let this piece of crap DIE already its just getting worse with every new change. It was already an awful stinker as it was, now with this latest insult of funding it by adding a new middle class tax you have to wonder what the Dems. are smoking in DC? No PO, A Forced mandate to buy lousy Private monopoly Ins, and and now the Tax on peoples health policies to pay for subsidies to Private Ins. companies? I’m @ a loss to how the Dems. could make this shit taco any worse? They’ve already managed in 1 short yr. to destroy their credibility and squander a huge Presidential mandate. IDIOTS!
Thirty years of “progressive” whining about the “circular firing squad,” thirty years of the Democrats lining up behind neoliberals (Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama). Why should any “real change” at all come from such a solemn, conformist procession?
As anyone can see it’s nigh on impossible to “make them behave”. What’s more natural, and intended by the Founders’, is that the public’s voices should be heard through their representatives. Are they being heard now? Is the current mix of Liberals to Moderates to Conservatives about right?
If everything is in order and the bill can’t be made to work, then apparently the people don’t sufficiently want it. I think we all do for various reasons and I think they’ll find some kind of compromise that will get through. Oh, to be a fly on the wall to those conversations…
There may be a lesson, of some kind, in this entire endeavor. It is that for big change you really need a lot of public support by having more than just one president leading the way, you need lots and lots of Congressional support as well. For smaller projects a popular president, like say Kennedy, Reagan or Clinton, can push it over the top.
Here Obama isn’t so much where the push has been made. It’s been in the House and Senate right down to the individual rep & senator. Obama has been a great guiding force, but it’s only now, in the closing, that he’s probably having the greatest effect as small groups discuss & negotiate.
There’s a boatload in politics. Why settle for just one?
Do you have some deal to make now which would silence the LieberDogs in the summer?
WTF? I guess you don’t recall Howard Dean saying the Afghan war was the ‘good’ one we had to win? I guess you haven’t noticed how complicated the economic crisis has been and how many obstacles have stood in the way of fixing it? Maybe you didn’t notice they tried to spend $1Trillion on a stimulus and were stopped by Conservatives?
Obama isn’t the one who’s been ‘screwing us’. It’s the Party of No Republicans and their sometimes friends the Blue Dog Dems.
Let’s kill it. I am super-tired of reading the plaints of “progressives” who imagine that the current crap bill is going to save a zillion lives when those deaths are the insurers’ bread and butter. Then let’s destroy the political fortunes of the Blue Dogs and start again with another bill next year.
No, it’s not. The people are far more progressive than the political class.
What do you mean? Didn’t you get an old fat guy for governor? Heh.
What’s that old saying…be careful what you vote for!
Then get more Lefties elected!
WTF?
Did any of those big, bad, mean ‘ole Republicans make Obama make those “secret” deals with PhRMA and the insurance industry BEFORE debate started in either house that basically sold out the PO and the chance for drug re-importation?? NO.
And they never needed 60 votes in the Senate. It only requires 50 votes (Biden as tiebreaker) for them to pass any and all bills they desire. The fact they CHOSE to require 60 speaks volumes as to where their hearts lie.
And blaming any Republican for this shit is about the looniest thing I’ve ever heard because not a single Republican voted for this Senate piece of shit. Not one.
And BTW, just curious, but exactly which mean ‘ole Republican made Obama do this? Or is it OK for Obama to shit all over the Constitution, just not OK when Bush/Cheney did it?
Perhaps they could setup one of those death panels and just take this thing off life support.
Exactly.
Hey, OFG, thanks. You do all the hard work and save me from having to write long posts.
lol.
Sometimes I feel like I overdo it here (I’m disabled and have lots of time) with my posting and promise myself I’ll post less often. It works for a few days, but then I get to the point of throwing bricks at things again, and it’s cheaper to post out my anger here than to keep replacing the stuff the bricks break. *g*
The DC fundraiser is now being reported by Ratigan on MSNBC as having been loaded with big Pharma and friends.
And then the dumb b****warns how important she is to the bill’s final passage??
This current crop of Reid/Lieberman Dems appear to be doing something …not so surprising to believe anymore: they’ve turned frustration and pity into such disgust and loathing that many believe (and covertly hope) they lose the majority.
Watching them then whine about being in the minority for the next two years of Obama’s administration, will virtually ensure Dems will be further so ravaged in 2012 that most of those who caused the recent failures – including the economic one – will finally all be gone.
[Modnote: please don't refer to women as bitches, find a better word, thank you.]
“Here Obama isn’t so much where the push has been made. It’s been in the House and Senate right down to the individual rep & senator. Obama has been a great guiding force, but it’s only now, in the closing, that he’s probably having the greatest effect as small groups discuss & negotiate.”
That’s just lovely, Mark, wonderful how your subtext deflects blame for this miserable bill away from Obama and onto single members of congress and onto us because we ‘didn’t want it enough’. This is Obama’s all the way, carrot isn’t working, and the stick is called ‘concession speech’.
Massive losses in Nov, priceless.
Your post was right on point. This bill needs to die …and if a con is elected in Mass. then so be it. Give the Obama liars a lesson.
All by myself?
About my language:
As a strong woman myself I’ve not referred to any woman recently quite deserving of such language and would not like it’s use against me. However, I and others have used similar derogatory terms aimed the ridiculous behaviors of men like Lieberman, Cheney, Limbaugh and a few others we all know and need to rant about.
For a Massachusetts Dem candidate like Coakley to proudly and blatantly attend such a lobbyist infested fundraiser almost ensures another notch downward in her chances of success, and the Senate’s and the nations as well, is absolutely well deserving of a ‘special’ word befitting of her idiotic follies. Thank you for the note.
How about schmuckhead?
[modnote: schmuckhead will do just fine :) ]
Suz!! where’s the earworm eliminator?
I wasn’t aware of this rule either. I’m afraid I used a variation of the word in Blue Texan’s “Two Former Bush Counterterrorism Officials: Hyping Terror Threat Helps Terrorists” thread at 21 IIRC, and I can’t edit it now, so if the mods want to edit it out for me…..
To be fair to myself though, if ever there was woman deserving, well Liz Cheney must be in the top 3 at least. IMO. *g*
The problem with the word is that it’s used to enforce rules on women’s behavior and expression. It’s not just calling one woman that, it’s simultaneously a warning to other women present that they are not to behave in that way. Such warnings (for various ‘transgressions’) are one way that society confines women to second class citizenship. It’s a loaded word and it’s ungentlemanly, gentlemen.
It’s clear that the clumsy ham handed show of corrupt and inept politics regarding healthcare games in both Houses, has sickened many Democrats and Independents.
This grotesque pathchwork schemed up to please the BigPharma and Insurance monopolies has allowed us see the weaknesses inherent in Team Obama, and to realize we’ve been snookered.
Obama’s silence during the HC debate was deafening. Yet he met in secret and made backroom deals with BigPharma and Insurance early on in secret backroom deals. Obama struck his drug deal with Bill Tauzin chief lobbyist for BigPharma. You rememer Tauzin as the member of congress who along with Tom Delay gave us the Donut Hole in the Medicare PlanD drug program.
Bait and switch.
The current patchwork sewn with bribery,corruption,and misreading the public will cost the Democrats dearly. Democrats have frayed their credibility.
Obama has not led and his detachment and unwillingness to keep his promises about transparency [C-Span open hearings, etc], and our witnessing the backroom deals made with the most conservative elements within Democrats has been a huge turn off.
As a woman I am enraged at the cynical use of Nelson and Stupak’s use of women’s constitutional rights to equal protection and freedom of choice.
To watch Democrats making an end run on RoevWade has been sickening and even more so as our faux liberal elected representatives mostly have sat by quietly.
Obama only cares about pushing this bill through at any cost, even women’s rights. Nelson’s getting $300million for Medicaid in perpetuity at all other States’ exclusion. And I could go on. And transfering the people’s wealth by mandating 30 million people to private insurance without choice is another boner. For a surprise we’ll be punished by a tax if we don’t or can’t comply.
But there is only one way to make the Democratic Party function and govern.
We must oppose all of the non performers and those that voted for Nelson/Stupak by punishing them at the polls.
They need to lose. We will not lose more than we already have, with more to come in the future if Obama is allowed to think he can continue to snooker us. Obama is not very different in his policies and behavior as the Republican and GOP leadership.
So I will exercise my rights as a life long Democrat to vote against those running in my State who supported this rot.
Team Obama, our Senators and Congressional Representatives must learn what we want and need or they will go.
What this original post is not telling you is the obvious fact that many of the dozens of Blue Dog Democrats who voted against this legislation are going to switch their vote now that the public option has been removed and bill is significantly more moderate. So the vote in the house isn’t anywhere near as close to the brink as this post suggests.
But anyway, this site has become a virtual fact-free zone of activist groupthink, so it’s probably best to keep actual political reality away from the conversation.
And the result of your stance – if enough people take your position – will unquestionably be the victory of Republicans and the massive setback of the entire progressive agenda. Given the stakes of the situation we face, having the Republican party in power would cause devastating suffering throughout the country, and could deal our nation a blow from which we never recover. That’s what you are hoping for.
They aren’t going to learn the lesson that you want, any more than the Democrats moved to the left when Nader voters gave the Presidency to George Bush. If you give the Presidency or Congress to the next George Bush, you’re going to look just as stupid as they did.
“And the result of your stance – if enough people take your position – will unquestionably be the victory of Republicans and the massive setback of the entire progressive agenda. Given the stakes of the situation we face, having the Republican party in power would cause devastating suffering throughout the country, and could deal our nation a blow from which we never recover. That’s what you are hoping for.”
Too fucking bad. I guess the dems in congress and the single termer in the whitehouse will have to do better.
Um, I believe I addressed that, in the part you glossed over where Larry Kissell’s poll numbers, as well as my look in past posts at several other members of Congress who voted against the bill, suggest that, with the political dynamics exactly the same for Blue Dogs, few are going to feel any space to flip their vote. But I shouldn’t expect you to read 700 whole words.
I suppose you know better than Congressional committee chairs who are saying the same thing.