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The House of Representatives is deep in the midst of drafting their reconciliation "fix" to the Senate health reform bill. Some of the language of the bill had been sent to the CBO as long ago as last week, and House members are already able to provide an estimated length of the bill (100 pages). The CBO score of the White House draft proposal on reconciliation could be out as early as tonight.
This is important, because the reconciliation bill represents the last stage of negotiations on health reform. Due both to their desire not to blow up deals on votes, and to prevent Republicans from using a filibuster by amendment strategy to kill the bill, there will not be strengthening amendments to the bill on the floor in either the House or the Senate (or, at least, they won't be allowed to pass, as per Roll Call's article on the public option today). The deal that emerges will already be written into the reconciliation bill itself, with the possible exception of a separate deal to capitulate to the Stupak bloc.
With the reconciliation bill nearly written, and with no strengthening amendments to the reconciliation bill on offer, the time for negotiating improvement to the bill has virtually ended. There might be another couple of days of agitation available, but not much time and only for marginal aspects of the bill. We are very close to the time when you simply have to decide whether you want to pass it or defeat it. I am on the support side, but that is something everyone has to decide for themselves.
No matter which side you are on, the odds for passage do not appear very good right now. The Hill sums up the difficulties facing the Democratic leadership pretty well:
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.(...)
Assuming every member votes, Democratic leaders could not afford more than 37 defectors, which would lead to a 216-215 tally.
Democrats can afford 37 defections. Already 25 members are either solid or "lean" no's, according to public statements. Further, that does not include many other groups making demands on the bill, most notably the roughly 12 members of Bart Stupak's bloc. And, it looks like Dems have given up on Stupak anyway:
House leaders have concluded they cannot change a divisive abortion provision in President Barack Obama's health care bill and will try to pass the sweeping legislation without the support of ardent anti-abortion Democrats.
A break on abortion would remove a major obstacle for Democratic leaders in the final throes of a yearlong effort to change health care in the United States. But it sets up a risky strategy of trying to round up enough Democrats to overcome, not appease, a small but possibly decisive group of Democratic lawmakers in the House.
So, with the Stupak group done, House leaders are either already at, or very close to, 37 defections. This means meaning Democrats need to round up all of the roughly 70 other, non-Stupak undecided votes.
That is an extremely tall order. While Democratic leaders continue to express confidence in the passage of health reform, public vote counts indicate that defeat of the bill has become the more likely outcome. For example, David Dayen's latest puts the count at 189 in favor, and 202 opposed.
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