Apparently I’ve been very far out of the loop, even though I’ve been keeping abreast of the news. Only a couple weeks ago, the idea of passing a healthcare bill in the House of Representatives was laughable. Now, Dems seem to have the votes. Tentatively, anyway. Any discussion of “deem and pass” may go out the window if this is true.
Allahpundit seems resigned to defeat. He blogs for a living, so if he’s worried, I’d take that very seriously.
Of course, Democrats have an easier time getting the bill passed, seeing as they have a supermajority in the House. Still, it’s going to be a party line vote, simply because so many Democrats are joining the Republicans. That means they have to look elsewhere for the yays.
Enter Dennis Kucinich, who will apparently announce tomorrow that he’s voting yes, even though the bill isn’t liberal enough for him. I guess I could see him being swayed by talk of a reconciliation bill, but I have my doubts about that. I could be very wrong, but if it was this difficult to get the Senate bill passed, the reconciliation bill’s chances seem remote, despite whatever Pelosi and co. say. Instead, Obama may have convinced him to wait it out, to take the incremental change route.
Now, I know that people will be tempted to consider that Obama offered him a Baucus-style backroom deal. Problem with that is if it’s true, then the bill must be worked out in conference and voted on again. I doubt the Dems want this battle to carry on for several more months. They’d like to get the bill passed and then work on the reconciliation fixes. Why create more headaches if you don’t need to?
Some people seem to think that Kucinich could be the cover other Dems need to vote yes on the bill. I’m also skeptical on this, because short of a backroom deal or a very good argument on why to vote with the Dems, all the players who were already “decided” are unlikely to change position at this point. Maybe a couple more Reps. will follow along, but I doubt many will.
So, with Kucinich on board, the Dems have a slightly more comfortable padding between passage and failure when the vote comes this week. Now it will be up to the undecideds, and I think we’re going to have to wait until voting day to see what most of them decide to do.
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