http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/ap/politics/2010/Jan/25/dem_leaders_coalesce_on_health_care_strategy.html
Democratic congressional leaders are coalescing around their last, best hope for salvaging President Barack Obama's sweeping health care overhaul. Their plan is to pass the Senate bill with some changes to accommodate House Democrats, senior Democratic aides said Monday. Leaders will present the idea to the rank and file this week, but it's unclear whether they have enough votes to carry it out.
Basically, they have decided that they've put too much into the current bill to abandon it now... they see that as an admission of failure, and they are unwilling to admit failure. So they've decided to push forward with their original plan.
This is a very risky move. Basically they're going to "give it the gas" and just roll over anybody who disagrees... which, at this point, is more than half the country. With growing opposition to the Democrat's ObamaCare bills in Congress, ignoring voter sentiment to push it through runs a high risk of generating voter backlash.
The major problem with this plan, of course, is that the House would have to vote for the Senate bill as it stands, and that's something that even Pelosi admits they don't want to do. Will the "fixer bill" concept be enough to encourage Democrats to bite the bullet, considering that IT'S passage isn't guaranteed? Good question.
Another problem arising is that budget reconciliation won't allow everything to be changed about the bill. Topics such as abortion coverage would be tough to fit in the fixer bill.
It's unclear that other major disputes — for example, how to restrict taxpayer funding for abortions — could be settled similarly. On abortion, the House bill is more restrictive than the Senate version.
"Provisions that have no budgetary effect would clearly run afoul," said James R. Horney, a former Senate Democratic budget aide now with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
That means Democrats might be able to resolve differences between the House and Senate on economic issues: taxing high-cost insurance plans, closing the coverage gap in the Medicare prescription benefit, and providing subsidies to help middle-income households pay insurance premiums. Yet they still could be left with a bill that cannot pass both the House and Senate.
Enough House Democrats have said they'd vote against it without the Stupak amendment that if they DON'T buy into the "fixer bill" idea, then the plan dies.
But let's assume they do buy into it and decide it may be worth passing the Senate bill as-is and then hoping the fixer bill sails through, complete with the entire Stupak amendment. Will that satisfy anti-abortion groups who support those pro-life Democrats? Probably not, no.
Abortion opponents say they will count any House vote for the current Senate bill as favoring new government subsidies for abortion. "I suggest they do it the other way around, fix it first and then pass it," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life. "Members will be held accountable for what they actually vote for. It really doesn't do to say, `I voted for something, but I was against it.'"
So the leadership has decided what course they want to follow. Now they'll have to try and sell it to skeptical Democrats and see if they can push it forward.
Let's see what they can manage to do. Personally, I think that shoving through a clearly unpopular ObamaCare bill, even after they got the Massachusetts warning, will backfire heavily on Democrats. But they don't care what I think... or you, for that matter. If you don't have power in Washington DC, they won't listen to you.
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