The Hill: House Democrats' 'no' votes are piling up on healthcare reform

[seafan]

Bob Cusack over at The Hill reports:


03/11/10 11:10 AM ET

.....

At least 25 House Democrats will reject the healthcare reform legislation, according to a survey by The Hill, a review of other media reports and interviews with lawmakers, aides and lobbyists. Dozens of House Democrats are undecided or won't comment on their position on the measure.
The 25 opposed include firm "no" votes and members who are likely "no" votes. Most Democrats on The Hill's whip list are definitely going to vote no, but others, such as Reps. Lincoln Davis (Tenn.) and Harry Teague (N.M.), could vote yes.

However, The Hill has not yet put Democrats who are insisting on Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) language on abortion in the "no" category. Stupak has said there are 12 Democrats who supported the House bill in November who will vote no unless his measure blocking federal funding of abortions is melded into the final bill.

The Hill's list does not include members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who are threatening to vote no unless changes are made to the bill's immigration-related provisions. Most on Capitol Hill believe that language will not be changed and that most members of the CHC will still back the final measure.

With all Republicans expected to reject the bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) needs to minimize defections. Thirty-nine Democrats voted against the House healthcare bill that passed 220-215 last November.

But the landscape has shifted a bit since last year with Rep. Parker Griffith's (R-Ala.) decision to leave the Democratic Party and four House vacancies. Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.), who backed the bill last time, will vote no unless the final bill contains changes on abortion-related provisions.

Assuming every member votes, Democratic leaders could not afford more than 37 defectors, which would lead to a 216-215 tally.

.....

And regarding the deadline of next week for this vote that is desired by the White House?

In an interview this week with Bloomberg and PBS host Charlie Rose, Pelosi indicated she has the votes to pass a bill. However, Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said on MSNBC Tuesday that he hasn't started to whip the vote yet.

The White House wants the House to vote by next week, but Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that meeting the White House deadline is highly unlikely. House leaders, including Hoyer, have publicly expressed their displeasure with the Obama administration for setting the March 18 deadline.

The House is expected to adjourn for two weeks on March 26. Hoyer indicated passing a bill by then would be difficult.

Time is running out.


As Michael Moore stated last night with Rachel Maddow, "Democrats, DO SOMETHING."




Here's a 'something', Mr. President: Create an Emergency Executive Order authorizing the expansion of Medicare to all Americans, paid for through our taxes, hereby granting Congress a new mission, and that is to bind this transformation of heretofore un-addressed great need, into permanent law.



It is the one thing that will correct this disastrous course.

[brewens]

1. it'll take some work to figure out how to divy up the no votes.

The usual deal where we have a bunch that want it to pass but also want to vote no. Then they can tell their constituents they voted against it. They will figure out who is in a tough election battle and really needs to be able to do that.

[jody]

2. Immigration provision has Hispanic Caucus threatening ‘no’ health vote

See DU thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7895921

[county worker]

3. Executive order is a good idea but you realize a tax increase has to also be in that order.

We're not paying for Medicare as it is. And medicare only covers some treatment not all.

[NoNothing]

10. Executive order cannot do this anyways

The President cannot change the law with executive orders. They are for issuing directives to the executive agency departments, not altering public policy.

[NoFace]

4. I'm sure he'll take time out of his not so busy schedule to lurk here and read your post.

Pfffftft.

Get over yourself.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. You are incredibly obnoxious.

Methinks you are an obnoxious Zombie of another obnoxious poster that was recently dispatched.

[Hekate]

9. You know, I think you may be right

Try Alerting.

[jody]

14. IMO your adjectives describing the poster overrated her/him. n/t

[upi402]

16. Rahm, is that you?

"Pfffftft.

Get over yourself."

I guess not, far too polite and respectful.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. A lot of Republican wanna-be's in the house.

Democratic congress who prefer that 45,000 people die a year without health care.

[zipplewrath]

11. What does this bill have to do with health care?

You presume these folks won't continue to die. Prove it.

[Ozymanithrax]

18. About 30 million people will have access to health care..

Medicare will be expanded to cover many of those.

I stand with the 45,000 people who die every year without health care. This will will help many of those as well as 30 million of the 48+ million who are on a waiting list for a coffin.

I unterly reject the great right wing fantasty that this is a socialist bill, and equally reject the left fantasy that this is corporate welfare.

I prefer to try and help the people that need healp.

[zipplewrath]

23. You mean health INSURANCE

This bill isn't particularly concerned about whether they get access to health CARE, at least for the ones dying that you keep mentioning.

[Ozymanithrax]

26. You know, I buy Health Insurance, and by God(enter preferre Deity title here) I get good health care

So does my mother, who qualifies for Medicare as well as using a Health Insurance plan through the the Restaurant Workers Union retirement. My sister didn't qualify so I help her pay for hers.

There seems to be this misconception that Health Insurance doesn't come with Health Care. I can not imagine where this absolute misconception comes from. It sounds like some of the inaccurate statements promulgated by those on the right, but I am sure that the source of this misconception is due to some innocent misunderstanding.

Now, I admit, Health Insurance is too expensive. But it still provides health care. To pretend that it does not, or that those who pay for it are simply being extorted of funds by some Mafia crew member is inaccurate. Being adults with honest differences of opinion, we should try to speak honestly.

[zipplewrath]

31. Not if you can't afford it

I know folks that have health insurance right now and can't afford to use it. Donut holes, copays, uncovered expenses, these things pile up. Women are being charge $300-$500 copays for a mamogram. A visit to the emergency room? $1000 copay. Just having insurance isn't a guarantee that you'll actually be able to afford it. I realize your experience is different, but you might wanna widen you view. And those who are being forced to buy it are the ones least likely to be able to afford to use it, especially after they lose the money to pay for it.

People keep saying things about the people who are dying because they don't have insurance. Those comments ignore that people WITH insurance are dying, and going bankrupt. Being adults, I'd think you could admit that.

[Mari333]

33. it IS corporate welfare

period.

[Individualist]

12. There's no doubt that DLC/NDC members are republican wannabes.

[Ozymanithrax]

21. If they vote like a Republican, then they should claim the name...

[galileoreloaded]

7. Executive Order along those lines leads to violent civil protests inside 3 weeks

full blown insurrection in 5 weeks.

[Flaneur]

17. Bring it on. I'd love to see Tea Partiers beat down.

[NoNothing]

19. It's not just TP'ers that would care about such a constitutional abomination

The Constitution places the power to tax and spend firmly with Congress. They can allocate money to the Executive agency (which the President is the head of) to use for this or that, but the Executive cannot spend money not allocated by Congress.

[sam kane]

20. Everybody will be too busy seeing a doctor, finally

to insurrect!

[annabanana]

22. in tea party land maybe...Dick Armey would pay big bux for that...n/t

[jody]

8. An EO would fail because congress controls the purse strings. n/t

[upi402]

13. "Emergency Executive Order authorizing the expansion of Medicare"

:shrug: Got a Democratic President handy for that? I advocated for the same thing and it got shot down even here on DU.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. Opinion board:

A.B. Stoddard
Brent Budowsky
Lanny Davis
John Del Cecato
Ben Goddard
David Hill
Cheri Jacobus
David Keene
Mark Mellman
Dick Morris
Markos Moulitsas

[Ozymanithrax]

24. And about that Executive order...

Here's a 'something', Mr. President: Create an Emergency Executive Order authorizing the expansion of Medicare to all Americans, paid for through our taxes, hereby granting Congress a new mission, and that is to bind this transformation of heretofore un-addressed great need, into permanent law.

You should be aware that an the President can not raise fund/taxes for anything. Such an exectuvie order would violate the Constitutional limits on the Exectuive branch. Even if he ordered it, there would be no authority to fund it, and so not one person would benefit from any such order.
Medicare spending was about $420 billion in Fiscal Year 2009, 14% of federal spending, and expected to rise to $553 billion in 2013, or 16% of the federal budget. It covered around 48 million Americans, who still were required to pay a deductable and premium costs. The President can not simply expand medicare by exectutive order.

[mzmolly]

25. I think we should take away health care for every congress person

who votes no.

[WI_DEM]

27. It's a shame that with HCR at a critical stage that Obama is going to be traveling abroad again

He leaves next week. I think he has spent way too much time this first year and quarter traveling overseas. Some of it couldn't be avoided but other trips I think could be.

[RagAss]

28. This is a non functioning government....they will be a historical footnote.

[SargeUNN]

29. Oh Well I am guessing the GOP will be back by 2013

We on the left have done such a great job of divide and conquer ourselves, I wouldn't not be surprised to see the Repukes get back the congress and White House. Hey after all they have had about 14 months to straighten out a mess that took 8 years or more to create, we have turned on the president almost from the first day, we refuse to say anything good he does, because we aren't like the Repukes who stand by their president regardless, we don't stand by our president regardless of if he does things we like because that is too close to being like a repuke. Healthcare we want all or nothing so we might just get nothing, after all what are a few million more dying that we could have saved by at least taking some steps. Let's just start with a clean sheet of paper (opps isn't that what the repukes want?) and if we don't get exactly what we want then ok screw those people, it is a matter of principle. Nah, we can't govern because we like to fight too much and we just like having our villian in control. Well, we might just get what we want.

[Mari333]

34. the blue dogs have only themselves to blame. nt

[seafan]

30. A look back at our history holds kernels of wisdom.

Seth Ackerman at A Tiny Revolution writes:

.....

Let’s start by asking why there have been no large-scale advances in social legislation since the 1960’s. The first thing I’ll note here is that the last big, ambitious measure, Medicare, was a government-run single payer program that displaced or preempted private health insurance coverage for about one in ten Americans. That’s why the AMA, Ronald Reagan, and the nascent conservative movement spared no effort to decry it as socialism.

Yet none of that prevented Medicare from passing in 1965 with 13 out of 32 Senate Republicans voting in favor. Nor did it stop the bill from winning the support of half the senators from the Deep South (5 out of 10, or 7 out of 14, depending on whether you count Texas and Florida). And what about the Mark Pryors, Blanche Lincolns, Ben Nelsons, Mary Landrieus of the world? In 2009, we were told they fought the Senate bill’s mildly progressive elements because they represented states that are “obviously” too conservative to support even such tepid liberalism. But in 1965, three of the six senators from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska voted for or pledged support for single-payer Medicare, a.k.a socialism.

Clearly something has gone terribly wrong since 1965. The ideological barriers against solving national problems through public provision rather than through the logic of profit maximization have increased enormously.

.....

But surely if we want to determine whether or not this is a historic progressive victory, we need to ask what exactly the health care reform effort has done to stem this ideological regression, since it clearly lies at the root of an unending string of progressive defeats. And the answer comes straight from the lips of Barack Obama, who has repeatedly told the country that this is a great bill because (1) it’s not an unrealistic and impractical foreign-inspired government-run program; (2) it doesn’t turn your health care over to government bureaucrats; and (3) it relies entirely on the principles of business competition and consumer choice (usually abbreviated to “choice and competition”).

But still, what about the millions of people who’ll now be getting health insurance? Covering the uninsured has been a liberal cause célèbre for years - how can anyone deny that’s a major progressive victory? First let’s all remember that millions of elderly people got prescription drug coverage due to a bill passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush. Medicare prescription drug coverage had been a Democratic rallying cry for years. Yet I don’t recall a single person claiming that Bush’s Medicare expansion was a huge progressive victory, and in the end 95% of House Democrats voted against it in a close vote.

Second, besides being a moral issue, the health care crisis was – to put it bluntly – a great issue for progressives. And not just for progressives, but for progressive ideas. Everyone could see the dysfunction of a system where people go bankrupt because they get sick or stay in jobs they hate just so they can keep going to the doctor. And there was always a feeling that time was on the side of health care reform: Most people who paid attention to this stuff knew that universal coverage in some form was inevitable. It was just a question of how. (The insurers certainly understood this, which is one reason why they agreed not to fight this bill.) The status quo wasn’t just bad, it was unsustainable. A reckoning was sure to happen, and when it came the obvious solutions would all be progressive-inspired. After all, if America is the only country without universal coverage yet spends more than every other country; and if all those other countries’ systems are more public and less private – well, the solution (or at least the right direction to go in) seemed obvious.

So health-care reform was not just a goal in itself. It was also a lever to revive liberalism, so that all the other myriad problems in this country could also be addressed. That’s why this issue was so cherished by the left. Now that lever has been pulled – only to bring about a moderate-Republican bill, sold on explicitly conservative grounds, that has been unpopular almost from the beginning.

.....

Whether or not a better health reform plan could have passed at this precise moment is a secondary issue. The larger question is what this bill tells us about this precise moment. Obama came into office with every whim of history leaning in his direction: a discredited Republican predecessor, a crisis of deregulated finance that reached a crescendo literally weeks before the election (what luck!); the largest Democratic majorities in decades (in a sense, even larger than the 1965 majorities; not counting southerners, the Democrats had 47 Senate seats in 2009, versus 40 in 1965). Such a clear shot will not return for decades.

And the result: The Democrats shot their historical wad on health care by re-introducing Bob Dole’s bill from 1994 and justifying it as a free-market solution. How is that a “huge progressive victory”?

... health-care reform was not just a goal in itself. It was also a lever to revive liberalism, so that all the other myriad problems in this country could also be addressed. ....


This feels like a funeral.

[AlinPA]

32. Pelosi: "we are close", "we have the votes".....what is the real story? She keeps leading us

around with these promises. I doubt that she knows how many votes there are in favor of HCR.