Health Wars (10/28/09)

Yesterday came the bombshell that a House BarryCare bill with "robust" public option tops out at two hundred votes.  Today we are reminded of the forty votes to which Blue Dog Bart Stupak (D-MI) lays claim with which he reiterates will join forces with the GOP to kill the bill dead, DEAD, DEAD if Crazy Nancy doesn't allow a floor vote on his amendment to ban all abortion funding:

Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI) on Tuesday threatened that he may work with Republicans to torpedo healthcare reform unless he gets a vote to strip abortion-related provisions out of the House bill.

Stupak wants a floor vote on a measure that would prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for abortions. And in an interview on C-SPAN on Tuesday, he suggested if Democratic leaders don’t give him the vote, he’ll work with Republicans.

Stupak said one way or the other, there will be a vote on the abortion language, either “though a rule, or on the floor, or on a motion to recommit.”

A motion to recommit is a parliamentary tool used by the minority in the House to kill legislation. While some Democrats occasionally vote for motions to recommit, it is unusual for Democrats to strategize with Republicans on how best to use the procedural motion.

Yeah, well, it's unusual for a majority party to try to heave ninety-yard touchdown passes moving the policy bubble decades down the ideological field in one gargantuan piece of legislation instead of moving the chains like our system is designed for instead.

The curious thing about Stupak's dispute is how needless a headache it is for the Donk Politburo.  What's the big bleeping deal?  Just give him his pro-life amendment vote, the amendment gets voted down, move on to the next insuperable hurdle.  Granny must have the votes to stuff Stupak, right?

Or maybe she doesn't.  No abortion funding in what is intended to be a stealth single-payer system would for the libs be like building a mansion and leaving out the floors.  As much of an unholy grail as health care is to the Left, fealty to the death cult may exceed even that.  If the regressives are threatening to "commit hara-kiri" if they don't get a "robust" public option, what would they do if they couldn't clandestinely neuter the Hyde Amendment?

The whole point of BarryCare is to do away with compromise and incrementalism and just take what the Left wants by brute legislative force.  But, once again, that is not how our system of government is designed to work, and House Donks are finding out the same thing as their Senate counterparts: the bigger bite you try to take, the more likely it is that you'll throw it back up.

But, arises the inevitable pessimistic skepticism, is our brother Bart really serious about his stand, or is he like most of his mongrel ilk, talking a good game but ultimately fleeing the leadership's rolled up newspaper and eating his piece of cheese like a good little lapdog?  This Heritage Foundation vid provides a most intriguing answer (via Ed):

Unless I'm missing something, Stupes told his Cheboygan, Michigan constituents pretty much what he's been saying all along and reiterated this week: that he'll block House BarryCare if he doesn't get his no-abortion-funding amendment vote, but if he does he'll fall into line.  At least that last part has been implied in the sense that I've never understood him to oppose the bill beyond the abortion angle.  But get a load of how his constituents react to his "process over principle" declaration.  Might that have put the fear of "1994, the sequel" into Bart's heart?

Mayhap it did, mayhap it didn't.  But again, if an amendment vote is the whole of Stupak's price and the Shieker has the votes to squash it, why not give it to him?  But if she doesn't, what does she do - blaspheme the Grim Reapers or suffer Elsa's fate?

Rules Committee Chairhag Louise Slaughter appears to have delivered the answer:

According to Stupak, Rules Chairman* Louise Slaughter (D-NY) told him there was “no way” her committee would approve a rule for the health-care bill that would allow a vote on his amendment by the full House.

So the gauntlet is thrown down.  The bill will die, or the bluff will be called.  Can Brother Bart count on his forty like Leonidas did his three hundred at Thermopylae?  If so....

[Nancy slips into a crevice and nearly falls, but Steny grabs her leather gloved hands just in time. She slowly turns her head to see the bill resting below her]
Steny Hoyer: Nancy...
[Nancy wrenches her left hand free to reach the bill]
Steny Hoyer: Nancy. Don't Nancy. Nancy. Give me your other hand honey, I can't hold you! Nancy: I can reach it... I can reach it...
[the glove on her hand starts slipping]
Steny Hoyer: Nancy. Give me your hand, give me your other hand!
[Nancy cries out as she nearly touches the bill. The glove suddenly slips off her hand and she plunges into the abyss]
Steny Hoyer: Nancy!

[Steny slips and nearly falls into the abyss, but Bart grabs his hand]
Bart Stupak: Steny, give me your other hand! I can't hold on!
Steny Hoyer: [reaching for the bill] I can get it. I can almost reach it, Bart...
Bart Stupak: Mr. Speaker.
[surprised, Steny looks up at the Michigan congressman]
Bart Stupak: Mr. Speaker... let it go.

~  ~  ~

Yes, that's high-octane stealth Godwinnism.  But just for fun.

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After yesterday's kneecapping, would this be demeanor with which you'd have expected Dirty Harry Reid to discuss Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman?

What you're looking at, gentlebeings, is what Yosemite Sam once called "a Hessian without no aggression".  Not in the sense that Pencil Neck is of Germanic descent (like your humble Yours Truly), but of having no place else to go.  As I observed yesterday, Senate Democrats are reaping what they sowed three years ago when they threw Liebs out of the party over his insistence on partisanism stopping at the waters' edge.  With reinserting the public option having forfeited the Olympia Snowe fig leaf, even as dim a bulb as Dirty Harry can see that the last thing he needs to do is alienate Joementum further.

Frankly, Reid's demeanor looks to me less like kid gloves treatment and more like a concession speech - both of Senate BarryCare and of his political career:

When Reid made his happy announcement [yesterday], I assumed he had cut a deal with Lieberman to guarantee his vote on cloture, because it would be foolish beyond foolishness to abandon Snowe without knowing — knowing — that Lieberman’s vote was secure. And now we learn that Reid was foolish, and Lieberman’s vote was not secure, and health care reform may well be dead…

Lieberman must be bribed, not punished — as must Snowe and Collins and anyone else who can provide that 60th vote. Nor should we be mad at Obama, at least for this particular fiasco; in any case, he has at least three years left in office and must soldier on, hopefully wiser and a hell of a lot tougher.

Reid’s head, on the other hand, should roll for this. He did the right thing yesterday, but apparently without laying the necessary groundwork first. Even freshman Congressman Alan Grayson could see that Lieberman was dangerous, but the experienced Reid did not? That’s inexcusable. The post of Senate Majority Leader belongs to a cynic, not a naif. It should be held by a tough negotiator, not a lapdog. It calls for someone willing, in Howard Dean’s memorable phrase, to “use his majority so he doesn’t lose his majority.” It calls for a leader with the simple common sense, the simple worldly wisdom, not to trust Joe Lieberman with the most important policy initiative of the most important Democratic majority since FDR. And Harry Reid — as many have known all along — is not that leader.

Did I say concession speech?  Make that eulogy instead.  Because the house of cloture cards I referred to yesterday is teetering on the brink of collapse:

Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN): Democratic leaders should be able to tell where Bayh is headed based on his vote on whether to move to a debate. The Indiana Democrat said Tuesday that he doesn’t see “much difference between process and policy at this particular juncture,” and that he’ll be “looking at those two things as one and the same.”

But Bayh said Tuesday that he’s not as concerned with the public option, saying he’s “more focused on is this fiscally responsible and what does this mean in terms of the premiums average families pay for those who currently have insurance.” Bayh said that Reid’s decision to reduce new fees on medical device makers has put his vote in play.

“Without that, they definitely would not have my support,” Bayh said.

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE): Perhaps the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, Nelson said Tuesday that it’s “too soon” to say how he’ll vote, saying he wanted to see the official cost estimate and the language.

Asked if he could support Reid’s opt-out plan, Nelson said: “What is it? Have you read it? I’m not being feisty here. But nobody has read it other than the leader and some staff. That is the point.”

Adds Ensign Morrissey:

Politico’s Manu Raju and Chris Frates also report that the two Senators from Arkansas are also in play for a filibuster.  Lincoln has already made her opposition to a public option plain, and says that she will not vote for cloture on a plan that includes one.  Now her fellow Democrat Mark Pryor says his vote on procedure will depend in part on Lincoln’s.

Annnnnd the coup de grace from Eeyore:

Every centrist is potentially the sixtieth vote; every Blue Dog will have to be bought off or else one of the Maine twins won over, and maybe Reid realized that he simply didn’t have enough legislative goodies to make that happen.

With post script by John Donne:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

BarryCare's bell hasn't tolled yet.  But it seems only to be a matter of time.

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The following CWA vids constitute pissing on its grave in advance.  But really, is there any other corpse that more deserves to be desecrated?