Is the House Health Care Bill Crashing?
Democrats are still scrambling to cobble together votes on the health care bill. All of their words this week have been nothing but a head fake to try to give a sense of inevitability to the vote. Ed Morrissey calls the vote schedule a Hail Nancy play and writes:
She didn’t schedule it for Saturday because she had the votes — and now Steny Hoyer has admitted as much this morning…
She couldn’t afford to wait too long for the vote after dropping 2,000 pages on members last week, and having them see the results of the elections this week. Pelosi and Hoyer thought that rushing a vote would allow them to bully recalcitrant moderates into support.
From the Wall Street Journal: House Health Bill Vote May Be Delayed
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said the vote that House Democrats had scheduled for Saturday could slip to Sunday or early next week.
Mr. Hoyer acknowledged to reporters Friday that Democratic leaders don’t yet have the 218 votes needed. He said he still expects passage Saturday night. But he added that some Democrats are still “looking to get a comfort level” with the bill.
The Boston Globe has a similar headline, House vote on health care could be delayed, and names the two issues that are causing problems for the Democrats.
House leaders are trying to rush the bill — one of the largest and most complex pieces of legislation considered in recent years — through the lower chamber quickly. They fear that with every passing hour, more issues could arise and create obstacles to passage.
Hoyer said discussions are ongoing over two side issues, abortion and immigration. Conservative Democrats don’t want public money to indirectly subsidize abortion, and they also don’t want illegal immigrants to benefit from insurance subsidies.
The Wall Street Journal had this on the Ellsworth proposal on abortion that is under discussion:
The Ellsworth proposal is opposed by Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, a leader of the anti-abortion Democrats, who wants stronger language. But Democratic leaders are hopeful it can satisfy at least some of the roughly 40 Democrats concerned about the abortion issue.
Jill Stanek has been onto the Ellsworth plan. Yesterday she had this quote from Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life:
The Ellsworth language is a political fig leaf made out of cellophane — it directs the federal Secretary of Health to hire a contractor to deliver to abortion providers the payments for elective abortions, payments that are explicitly authorized by the bill [on page 110]. This is a money-laundering scheme — a federally funded ‘bag man’ will deliver government funds to abortionists. This is federal funding of elective abortion.
FOX News has this on the illegal immigration issue:
House Democratic leaders are facing a revolt from Hispanics in the Caucus who say they don’t want a prohibition supported by the White House but not in the House bill that prohibits illegal immigrants from buying insurance through a government-established exchange. A ban exists in the Senate version of health insurance reform.
Keep calling!
UPDATE: While I was writing this post, Ed added one at Hot Air with an excellent analysis: The Ellsworth dodge fails to fool pro-life ObamaCare critics. You’d think they’d realize after all these years, that pro-lifers have gained a little political savvy!
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H/T: Hot Air, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Jill Stanek, National Right to Life, FOX News.
[1]
not any more than the economy is crashing…oh wait…never mind.
[2]
There are 8 dead in Orlando in what appears to be a copycat shooting.
[3]
revise that, 2 dead, 8 wounded
[4]
Just saw that.
[5]
Jacksonville news has 2 dead, 6 injured as of 12:56 EST.
[6]
But it’s terrorism!!!
No way no how, remember that.
Yes I think the current incarnation in the house just died this afternoon. She’s close but she doesn’t have the votes, and I doubt she get’s them this weekend unless the president starts offering jobs to about 20-30 congressman.
MFG – You may be right, hellcare might actually be going down.
[7]
I am not convinced that ScaryCare is dead…..there is nothing in these report that a bit of arm breaking, deal makin’ (ie legal graft), and/or tricky legal languauge cant paperover
As much as I would like to beleive the beast is slain, I wont beleive it until Obama, Pelosi, etc get together and have that press conference saying it then go into the usual blame game about tea party nuts, R obstrutionists, fox news, and big health insurance being to blame…..
All they need to do to kick this back on track is ditch the government option and wala! No filibuster in the Senate….
this house squable will be settled and some form of ScaryCare will be out by the end of next week…..I bet my next check from Acme on it!
Now is the time to keep the pressure up on these statist thugs!
[8]
Hello, Tipping Point
The Obama presidency was always a race against time.
[9]
I don’t think Pelosi ever gives it up.
What I think might happen is Hoyer takes over in a coup d’etat.
Pelosi is extremely unpopular except with the radical fringe due to her strong-arm tactics. Hoyer is far more popular.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he is preparing to wield the knife in Brutus-like fashion, and using the hellcare debacle as his pretext for doing so.
[10]
oops, ‘wouldn’t’
[11]
Wylie, considering your record with Acme!
[12]
Excellent article, Eph.
On Tuesday, Obama stumbled before he got to the finish line.
[13]
“What I think might happen is Hoyer takes over in a coup d’etat.”
—
God I hope not, he might actually be competent!
Yeah that Kim Strassel piece was good.
[14]
pg, I was just discussing the “Hoyer Option” with Mrs. Justrand this morning.
Good News: Piglosi goes down in flames (champagne sales skyrocket!)
Bad News: Hoyer puts a HUMAN face on many of the same ideas and gets them passed.
How would Nancy react to being thrown under the bus? Re-play the scene from ‘Aliens’ where the momma alien watches Sigourney Weaver use a flamethrower on the alien eggs…and double it!
[15]
RAS:
49% See GOP Takeover of Congress Next Year As Possible
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Forty-nine percent (49%) of U.S. voters now say it is at least somewhat likely that Republicans will win control of Congress next year. But only 18% say it is very likely.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 37% think it’s unlikely the GOP will take majority control away from the Democrats. Just seven percent (7%) say it’s not at all likely. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.
Fifty-two percent (52%) of all voters say Republicans are the party most likely to gain seats in Congress in next year’s mid-term elections. Thirty-two percent (32%) say Democrats will pick up seats. Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure.
The survey was taken the night of Election Day and the night after. On Tuesday, Republicans won the two marquee races of the year, taking away the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia from Democrats.
[16]
That I have lived to see the day that lunatics are running this country
I’m not really a fearful person, but seeing an unhinged lunatic like Nancy Pelosi as Speaker is frightening
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Hot air grabs the Trippi on Foxnews no no …
WH to Dem strategists: Stop making Fox so … balanced?
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Hate to say it, but I think Hoyer would be a pretty competent House leader. The bad part is he is only slightly less left.
With the current house makeup, Pelosi is an easier target as she is a leftist loon and looks the part.
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18. Anything is better that San Fransisco, that aint saying much
[20]
Terrorist bastards are ruining what was a good win for the people of this country, namely gov’s in NJ & VA.
I’d hate to see what’s in store for us if Republicans take over Congress next year.
[21]
Pelosi has that, that LOOK in her eyes
What the hell is that look…???
The kind of look an axe murderer would have just before swinging away…
[22]
Eph, an old song comes to mind on the WH:
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your heart it will creep
It happens when you’re always afraid
Step out of line and the man comes to take you away
Stop, hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down…em>
[23]
My communist representative, Suzanne Kosmos D, has issued a statement saying she would not vote for commie care.
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Of course, all they need is 218…
Let them pass it. We will resist, and repeal it…..
[25]
yahoo ~~ Let them pass it. We will resist, and repeal it…..
I don’t know, you may not get that genie back into the bottle.
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Well, no, but they have the votes to do what they want. We have no choice.
And they will have no job.
[27]
Here is a great article that refocus the HC debate on to trashing the most onerous, sleazy, scumbagalious, unconstitiutional crap calazone ever – the Individual Mandate!:
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ODU0NGRhY2FhNDAyZDA4MzAzMDBlZTJiZjM3ZjA4NDM=
“The centerpiece of the bills currently under consideration is not the “public option,” but the “individual mandate” — a legal requirement that all U.S. residents purchase health insurance, on penalty of fines and/or imprisonment.
The CBO describes an individual mandate as “an unprecedented form of federal action” whose closest analogue in federal law is the draft. But as President Obama told a joint session of Congress, the rest of the legislation won’t work unless the federal government forces Americans to purchase health insurance.
President Clinton’s ill-fated health plan had an individual mandate, too. Back in 1994, the CBO decided that since “the mandatory premiums . . . would constitute an exercise of sovereign power,” the agency would treat all premiums as federal revenues, including them in the federal budget.”
[28]
‘God I hope not, he might actually be competent!’
Yes, as wonderful as it would be to see the hag unseated, it would be a bad thing in the long run.
Pelosi’s incoherent radicalism, her tyrannical nature, and her grotesque visage are all distinct GOP advantages. Puts a scary face on scary ideas–the marxist was able to get elected by doing just the opposite.
[29]
heh.