it ain't over till it's over

Healthcare "reform" is not a done deal.  The fact is that only one Senator has to flip to stop this.

And the deadline for flipping is not Christmas Eve -- it's when the bill comes back from conference.  That's important, because politically there are no changes to the bill between Sunday night's vote and Christmas Eve.  Even if a single Senator has already changed his mind, he has no politically viable excuse to start opposing it now.

Don't expect Ben Nelson or other moderates to suddenly announce that they're caving under pressure from voters who overwhelmingly disapprove.  These guys are U.S. Senators -- they don't work that way.  

When you come home to find your house being burglarized, you don't block the exits.  We do need Senate Democrats to know -- to really feel -- that this is overwhelmingly opposed, but only so that when a politically correct escape route presents itself they will take it on their own.  Graciously, and on some politically-correct sounding principle.  That's the way these guys work.

A Democrat Senator needs two reasons to kill this bill.  First, he needs a political reason to change his vote -- that's where vocal public opposition comes in.  But he also needs an ideological, technical reason to change it.  When people are using terms like "moral imperative," you don't oppose legislation on the basis of something as shallow and cheap as eroding public opinion in your home state.  Not publicly.  You need an excuse that sounds just a little more magnanimous than that.  Something presentable.

And the problem is that until this bill comes back from conference there won't be any more ideological reasons to oppose it -- at least not without giving the appearance of waffling.  All the other votes until then simply reaffirm the same legislation from the first cloture vote.  It's impossible to raise a new objection until something changes -- and that won't happen till conference.  The political reason to flip continues to grow, but there won't be a face-saving ideological reason -- an excuse -- until something changes in the bill.

What this means is that we need to use this time -- now, starting last Saturday -- to continue to hammer on the corruption, the ineffectiveness, the true costs and the unintended consequences of this legislation.

Yes, many of  us have already made ourselves heard on these issues.  But others are only now waking up, like the many liberals who supported the bill until the public option was pulled out.  We need the Senate to see the full magnitude of what they've awoken.

The trends against Reid's bill haven't changed, and that means Senators aren't getting any more sure about their votes.  But they're not in a convenient position to change their minds right now, either.  We just need to keep the pressure up -- not to force anyone to flip, but to get them to start looking for excuses to flip.  The opportunity will present itself soon enough.

By the way, there is a legislative fast-track that commits the Senate's vote.  I don't think it's likely to happen, but if Pelosi could get a majority in the House to approve the Senate bill exactly as passed by the Senate, then no conference would be necessary.  If the bill goes to conference -- as it seems almost certain to do -- then somebody is going to be making changes.  And any change made in conference is a potential reason to abandon the bill afterward.

Merging the bill in conference not only creates reasons to reject it -- it also creates the most important opportunity.

Comments

[Matt from Iraq]

The first domino has fallen. Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama making a switch to GOP. A key reason: healthcare reform.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30896.html