Mathemagic

The search for House votes on the health care bill to get to the magic number (down to 216) continues apace. Indeed, the President has postponed a foreign trip to help out--put those hors d'oeuvres back in the freezer, Indonesia.

The trouble with this story is it's hard to know what's really going on. Both sides may put on a brave face, but all the action is happening between Dems behind closed doors. Maybe they've already got the votes, maybe they can't get the votes.

It's generally believed Nancy Pelosi will not allow a vote until victory is assured. This means no matter what is said in public, one can assume the Dems don't yet have the numbers because if they did, a vote would be scheduled.

Pelosi and the White House are using both the carrot and the stick, though I get the feeling right now it's mostly the stick. The trouble is a bunch of Dems are being asked to vote for a Senate bill they find upalatable, with only the hollow assurance it'll be fixed later. If the Senate still had the 60 votes needed, perhaps it could go first (heckuva job, Brownie), but right now Pelosi is demanding her side jump off the cliff while they're still preparing the net.

What's wrong with the Senate plan? A lot. Among other things, it's got special deals (which normally might escape notice, but not on something this high profile), a tax on "Cadillac" health plans (a provision I believe they would get rid of, or at least make another special deal so groups that traditionally vote Dem wouldn't have to pay) and, above all, seems to allow federal funding of abortions (which I bet the Senate wouldn't remove, even at gunpoint).

So the House Dem pro-life bloc has become Pelosi's stumbling block. Her main efforts have been to convince them not to change their "yes" vote. But they voted "yes" when they believed they would get what they want, so why continue when they've been beaten on this issue by their own party? The most interesting development, in fact (if sources are to be believed--who knows?), is that Pelosi has given up on turning them en masse. If so, sounds like she's in trouble. This means she has to go vote-mining among Dems who voted "no" last time. Perhaps she can flip a few, but that "no" is looking better and better. Don't forget, we're talking about a lot of Dems who operate in precincts that voted for McCain. The big argument Dems have been using has been "hey, you already voted yes once, you're gonna be blamed anyway." With that gone, just how much can Pelosi threaten or offer?

We'll know soon enough, I guess. One story is there are enough shaky votes for her to get her way. Another is that Pelosi might just schedule a vote even if she isn't sure how it'll turn out, just to get this thing out of the way. It's already dragged on at least six months more than any Dem wanted. There has to be some limit.

PS Scott Brown, who helped make this all about the House, is speaking out.

Maybe you remember what President Obama promised in his State of the Union address. He said he was going to finally focus on jobs and the economy for the remainder of this year. I applauded him for that. Well, here it is, it’s almost spring. And what is he out there talking about again? That same 2,700-page, multi-trillion dollar healthcare legislation.

So, an entire year has gone to waste. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn’t gotten the message.

Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the healthcare bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway. Their attitude shows Washington at its very worst – the presumption that they know best, and they’re going to get their way whether the American people like it or not.

I think Brown, unwittingly, puts his finger on the big positive about health care reform. It's been very helpful in preventing, or at least slowing down, quite a few other bad ideas Congress wished to go ahead with.