Health Bill Basics

Oh Sue, you will like this one!

Bishops Dismiss Other Catholic Groups: We

The Queen of the Tea Party twittered this :

Pix of rally in DC look great,wish I were there!Patriots who r:Keep the faith!Keep up the good fight to”Kill the Bill”&take our country back

http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/10782666292

Finally, the MSM is reporting on the Tea Party people.

The racism and bigotry was reported on CNN and ABC, and NBC interviewed Barney Frank.

*** UPDATE *** NBC’s Shawna Thomas has more after an interview with Frank. Here’s part of what he had to say:

“It’s just dissapointing. … John Lewis said he felt like it was 50 yearss ago. … I walked from the Longworth building to the Rayburn building … people started shouting and saying abusive things, and I just kept walking. …

“The Republican leadership is making a mistake not doing more to disasociate from this. … It’s a mob mentality that doesn’t work politically. …

“The only problem I have with this… They all said ‘You should quit. You should quit. We’re going to defeat you. At some point… I’d like to retire. As long as I think it might make some of those people happy, I can never retire. I may have to work forever as long as they’re out there.”

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/20/2234644.aspx

Update from CA – according to the NYT, all Dems in CA appear to be on board. Costa, Cardoza, and Sanchez, the three Blue Dogs, are not in play. McNerney, a liberal, was holding out because the bill was not ‘good enough’ (well, duh) but seems solid again.

We appear to have fewer hold outs, though reports are still sketchy. Two did the McNerney thing – not good enough – as if that made ANY sense. Disgusting!

I am hopeful but scared. The one bright note from the HuffPo – Reid has MORE than enough in the Senate. The House is the weak spot, so let’s keep pushing.

Here is the NYT list. Ohio – boomer – lean on Marcy Kaptur because she is a strong union supporter and smart cookie – we need her to accept the existing limits on abortion and not kill real. live people to do nothing at all about abortion that is not already done in the existing Senate language in accordance with Hyde.

Pelosi is NOT cutting a deal with Stupak. The Parliamentarian can keep Stupak’s alternative health care bill at bay as I understand it. It would be out of order.

Brian Baird (Wash. 3) Tossup
Marion Berry (Ark. 1) Tossup
Rick Boucher (Va. 9) Leaning Dem.
Jerry F. Costello (Ill. 12) Solid Dem.
Henry Cuellar (Tex. 28) Solid Dem.
Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa. 3) Likely Dem.
Lincoln Davis (Tenn. 4) Leaning Dem.
Joe Donnelly (Ind. 2) Likely Dem.
Steve Driehaus (Ohio 1) Tossup
Paul E. Kanjorski (Pa. 11) Likely Dem.
Marcy Kaptur (Ohio 9) Solid Dem.
Daniel Lipinski (Ill. 3) Solid Dem.
Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va. 1) Leaning Dem.
Glenn Nye (Va. 2) Tossup
Earl Pomeroy (N.D.) Leaning Dem.
Nick J. Rahall II (W.Va. 3) Solid Dem.
Bart Stupak (Mich. 1) Solid Dem.
John Tanner (Tenn. 8) Tossup

Those living in the states with these waffle irons, please put pressure on them. They all can be found by googling their names. If you’re not right in their district, well, that’s what Cher gave us the ZIP code link for… Do not bother phoning – voice mailboxes are full, and no one is answering. Email is GREAT and works. FAXes are better, if you have access.

Damn – why is this such a cliff hanger? This is a slam dunk – people need health care coverage. This is affordable, reduces the national debt, and will be made better over time. Let’s DO IT.

Harry Mitchell is a YES!

But of course, his office was the target of the Tea Party rally today –

“Tea party” protesters gathered outside the Scottsdale offices of Rep. Harry Mitchell on Saturday to protest federal health-care reform and what some called a “socialist” restructuring of the United States.

The protesters were enraged by the Democratic congressman’s Friday announcement that he would vote “yes” on legislation to overhaul the nation’s health insurance system, adding to crucial momentum to party leaders trying to muster enough votes to pass the bill in the House of Representatives.

“This is not about health care; they want to change the fundamental structure of America,” said Morton Mitchell, of Fountain Hills. “This is just the beginning. They want to make America a socialist state.”

The so-called “tea partiers” rallied at the intersection of Camelback and Scottsdale Roads for more than three hours, waving U.S. flags and holding signs denouncing Mitchell and “Obamacare.”

Several were also there to campaign for former conservative talk radio host J.D. Hayworth, who is trying to unseat Sen. John McCain in the Republican primary, though the state “tea party” organization has opted not to endorse Hayworth.

Motorists who passed the demonstrators throughout the day sounded their horns in support. About 150 people gathered at the intersection for the rally.

“The noise level is so high I’ve got to cover my ears sometimes,” said Suzanne James, of Tempe. “Harry is done for.”

Judy Hoelscher, of Phoenix, carried a sign, saying, “Tar and feather Harry Mitchell.”

The self-described “angry conservative housewife” said she is particularly alarmed by a mandate in the bill requiring that most people purchase health insurance or face a fine.

“You’re being forced to buy a product. That’s unconstitutional,” Hoelscher said. “The end result will be single-payer, government-run health care.”

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/03/20/20100320tea-party-protest-phoenix-ON.html

Oh sheesh, Tea Party activist predicts if HCR passes, gun control is next.

Inside House office buildings, protesters made their views known by visiting lawmakers’ offices and chanting at legislators walking by.

Among the demonstrators was Delane Stewart, 65, of Cookeville, Tenn., who had come with her husband, Jesse.

“You know what’s coming next if this happens?” she said, referring to the health bill’s passage. “They’re going to come after gun control.”

Retired businessman Randy Simpson, 67, of Seneca, S.C., also said the health bill was just a first step.

“My concerns are about the health care bill, and the direction it takes us is toward communism, quite frankly,” he said.

http://www.salon.com/wires/politics/03/20/D9EIKGN00_us_health_overhaul_raucous_day/index.html

While watching the parade of Republican Reps and their amendments, the question is: if every one of these amendments were passed, how many R votes would the bill get?

On the eve of the historic health care reform vote, federal officials are investigating a brick thrown through a window of the Niagara Falls office of U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport.

The incident occurred early Friday, when no one was in the office, said Slaughter spokeswoman Victoria Dillon. There was no note or message on the brick, she said.

IT’S COMPLICATED:

From Nat Silver 538

ORIGINAL POST (1:49 PM): As of about 5 PM yesterday afternoon, it appeared that the Democrats were well on their way to securing enough votes to pass health care reform. They had gotten commitments to vote yes from seven legislators — Betsy Markey, John Boccieri, Alan Boyd, Bart Gordon, Susan Kosmas, Dennis Kucinich, and Scott Murphy — who had voted no originally and most of whom (with the exception of Kucinich and the retiring Gordon) are in tough districts in which their switching their vote represents a significant political risk. It seemed highly unlikely that those Democrats would be willing to switch unless they were quite confident that the bill would pass — since switching making a public commitment to switch from no to yes becomes an even larger risk for them in the world in which the reform effort nevertheless fails.

However, with 7 no-to-yes switches, the Democrats can afford at most 8 yes-to-no switches in order to retain the votes to pass their bill. And right now, Chris Bowers puts the number at 10 instead: the 8 most solid members of the Stupak block (Cao, Carney, Costello, Donnelly, Driehaus, Lipinski, Rahall, Stupak) and two (Arcuri and Lynch) who are prepared to vote against the bill for non-Stupak reasons (although Lynch is pro-life). Some people also put Marion Berry (Arkansas) in the Stupak group; I’m not sold on that that since Berry voted for the reconciliation bill in committee (“undecided” seems like a more appropriate tag).

Still, Pelosi has several ways to get to 216.

1) Convince the other two retiring Dems (Baird, Tanner) to flip and hold everyone else. It’s surprising, given how many Democrats in tough districts have agreed to switch, that the retiring Brian Baird and John Tanner haven’t, especially since Baird is fairly liberal. But neither has ruled out voting for the bill. The trick, of course, is that if someone is retiring, you don’t really have that much leverage over them — although things like Ambassadorships can sometimes be promised. In any event, these are the two “easy” renaming no-to-yes flips; there are maybe one or two other members that Pelosi could call on in a pinch, but most of the universe of potential no-to-yesses have either committed to voting for the bill or voting against it.

2) Pick off Lynch and Arcuri and hold everyone else. These are the two yes-to-no defectees who aren’t members of the Stupak block. Both have resisted repeated calls to reconsider — but the Democrats have the opportunity to play hardball with each, as Lynch could lose his committee and leadership positions and as Arcuri could be quite vulnerable to a primary challenge.

3) Pick off individual members of the Stupak block (and hold everyone else). The fact is that the Stupak block has never been totally solid, fluctuating between as few as 5 or 6 members and as many as 12 or 13. The statements that various members of the group have made about the bill involve varying degrees of equivocation. Someone like Carney, for instance, or perhaps a Driehaus, could still possibly be picked off. This may be one thing that Pelosi is trying to do by declaring that a Stupak deal is off the table — a Carney has no incentive to compromise if he thinks that Pelosi will just cut a deal with Stupak anyway.

4) Cut a deal with Stupak after all. Risk-reward: you could get the yes votes as high as 220-223 (possibly including a Republican, Joseph Cao) — or you could see massive defections among pro-choice Democrats and the whole thing collapse. Although Pelosi might claim that a deal with Stupak is off the table, it seems unlikely that it wouldn’t revisit it if it’s her only renaming option. (EDIT: There also appears to be an option #4b — which is some sort of clarifying language on abortion via Executive Order.)

Obviously, none of these paths (except #4 to a large extent) are mutually exclusive — nor are they necessarily sufficient if other undecideds and lean-yes votes (who have a number of unrelated objections) decide to complicate things for Pelosi. Still, the fact that there are several potential paths to 216 mean that the odds remain in the Democrats favor. On the other hand, the number of options also complicates things in another sense, since Democrats who might want to see the bill pass but don’t want to vote for it might not be convinced that their no votes would in fact doom the bill.

The downgrade in the chances of passage at Intrade (to about an 80 percent chance of passage at this writing versus the high 80s yesterday evening) clearly seems warranted (I might go closer to 75 percent myself). Fundamentally, however, it seems likely to me that Pelosi has at least 216 members potentially willing to vote for the bill if their vote makes the difference between passage and failure — even without brokering a deal with Stupak. That she has 216 potential yes votes, however, doesn’t mean she’ll actually get them. This is a very complicated bargaining process. The greatest risk, perhaps, is that the negotiations start to break down on multiple levels — i.e. she’s having headaches with some members over Stupak, with others over deem-and-pass, with still others (like Pete DeFazio) over Medicaid equity, etc. If that happens, there could be a sort of “run on the bank” as wavering Democrats seek to distance themselves from the legislation. In particular, if some seemingly solid (but electorally vulnerable) yes votes start to equivocate — particularly no-to-yes flips that Pelosi previously seemed to have in the bag — that would be a sign of trouble.

More disturbing reports about the Tea Party Code Red rally –

Today

Tea Party activists yelling insults at Democratic Reps.

Things are getting pretty heated in the Capitol with crowds of anti-Reform/Tea Party activists going through the halls shouting slogans and epithets at Democratic members of Congress.

As our Brian Beutler reports, a few moments ago in the Longworth office building, a group swarmed a very calm looking Henry Waxman, as he got on the elevator, with shouts of “Kill the bill!” “You liar! You crook!”

Not long before, Rep. Barney Frank got an uglier version of the treatment. Just after Frank rounded a corner to leave the building, an older protestor yelled “Barney, you faggot.” The surrounding crowd of protestors then erupted in laughter.

At one point, Capitol police officer threatened to throw a group of protestors out of the building but that only seemed to inflame them more; and apparently none were ejected.

Note that this was in the Longworth building, not the Capitol building proper. But I’m a bit surprised that this is being allowed to occur anywhere in the Capitol complex. From Brian’s description it sounds like menacing.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/03/menacing.php?ref=fpblg