Who is John Galt?

healthcare whip count

Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics.com keeps a running tally of House Democrats on healthcare reform.

I've been following Jay on Twitter for some time, and I really like his work.

no, massa

On Drudge: Is Eric Massa being tossed out because he's a "No" vote on the Senate bill?

An interesting dynamic here that I'd overlooked.  When Massa leaves, the threshold for passage drops to 216.  For the liberals, ousting their own "No" votes is the same as ousting Republicans.

Of course, resigning is still Massa's call.  There can be political motives for bringing ethics charges, but I have to think Massa makes his own decisions about leaving.  If he does stay as a "No" vote, then that's better than having him stay to vote for the bill.

I'm not sure I believe the story though.  Massa's pretty liberal.  His explanation for his vote against the House bill sounded a lot like Kucinich's vote.  If necessary for passage, I've figured the liberals already have him.

It is interesting, though, that Dems may be reduced to culling their own ranks.  If true, it would suggest they've hit a wall in their search for more votes from within.  Without a CBO score, though, I don't see how they've reached that point yet.  So while it could happen, I'm not sure that's what's going on with Massa.

And yet, I just can't put anything past these people.  The libs will bring out some very long knives indeed to pass this, if necessary.

pelosi's hole cards

Of the 220 representatives who voted for the House healthcare bill in November, only 216 Democrats remain.  It currently takes 217 votes to establish a majority in the House, meaning that Pelosi will have to turn at least one of the "No" votes from November into a "Yes" vote in order to pass the Senate bill.  She will also need to turn one "No" vote for each member she loses over the Senate's abortion language.  It's likely that she's lost some additional votes over the healthcare effort's increasing unpopularity, but she may have also gained others simply because the Senate bill is more moderate than the original House bill was.

Presumably, some Dems sought Nancy Pelosi's permission to vote against the House bill to avoid taking a beating back home.  These members would have been prepared to vote in favor of the bill, but only if necessary for passage.  If the bill could pass without them, they would have wanted to vote against it.

When Pelosi goes looking for votes to make up for her losses, she's going to start with those "pocket votes."  When the Senate bill comes through the House, she'll be calling in those votes to make up for Murtha, Wexler and Abercrombie, and whoever Stupak's taken with him.  I expect her to get Kucinich as well, and I think she would have gotten Massa's vote if he wasn't resigning.

So just how many such "hole cards" does Nancy have?  Well, as Jay Cost has pointed out, if Pelosi was sandbagging more votes than Stupak had, then she would have used those votes to keep the Stupak amendment from ever getting to the floor.  It can't be that many.

Below is CSPAN video of the House of Representatives passing its healthcare reform bill.  I picked this clip because it starts before the bill reaches majority.  What I want you to see happens within the first minute.

What we should expect to find is that some Democrat "No" votes are held back until the "Yes" votes reach 218.  Remember, those members can only cast their votes against the bill if there are enough votes to pass it without them.  So they would withhold their votes to the very end, not really knowing until the last minute which way they'll have to go.

As the video opens, the Democrats are at 216-36, with 6 votes to go.  Allowing that what we see on the count may not fully explain what's actually taking place on the House floor, three "No" votes are registered in fairly quick succession.

I can only imagine that these votes were held till the very end because it took that long for certain members to be sure the bill could pass without them.

I'd also like to point out that of the 39 who voted against the original House bill, at least 20 voted for the Stupak language.  I think it's safe to say that those 20 are not going to be voting for the Senate bill, leaving Pelosi with about 16 or 17 Democrats that she could potentially turn, including her original hole cards.  And if Stupak's taken as many votes as he says he's taken, she's going to have to dig deep into that reserve.

whip-counting democrats

Jay Cost (H/T to BigGovernment.com): Factors in the search for House Democrats to approve the Senate healthcare bill.

How many such "options" does Nancy Pelosi have among these 38 nay voters? That's the big question, and it is impossible to pin down a precise answer. However, it's important to note that the Stupak amendment is precisely the kind of bill that the party leadership does not allow onto the floor - it passed, but with a majority of the majority voting against it. That Pelosi allowed this to happen suggests that she needed the Stupak voters, which in turn suggests that they are (or at least, were) more numerous than however many pocket votes she had.

Cost also mentions here (and elsewhere) that reconciliation will be about winning over liberal Democrats rather than moderates.  Consider the tax on "Cadillac" plans, which is part of the Senate bill.  House liberals sensitive to union interests are going to want that fixed in the reconciliation bill before they'll okay the Senate healthcare language.

on reconciliation

Following Obama's speech on Wednesday, I was disappointed at some of the misunderstanding that's out there, about the Democrats' "reconciliation strategy."  Even Limbaugh got it wrong initially, though he corrected himself on Thursday.

What you need to realize is that the House and Senate have to pass the same, identical text.  Ordinarily, their separate bills get sent off to a joint conference that merges them, and then both chambers vote on the product of that conference.  Top Dems were in the middle of merging the House and Senate bills when Scott Brown was elected.  Brown effectively killed that process, because the merged bill is subject to a filibuster in the Senate.  It would have never reached cloture.

The two chambers passed significantly different bills.  The House legislation included a "public option," while the Senate relied on a mandate.  The bills differed in taxation, the "exchanges" worked differently, and they took different approaches to Medicare.  The two versions are each as liberal as their respective chamber can tolerate, which is why they both passed on very close, party-line votes.  And even before Brown was elected, Democrats were having problems reaching agreement on the final merged product.

"Reconciliation" refers to a rule for passing budget items with limited debate.  Since the filibuster is technically an unending debate, putting a time limit on debate defeats the filibuster.  Reconciliation measures are required to get an up-or-down vote in the Senate, where it takes 51 votes to actually pass a bill.  The hard part has always been getting 60 senators to agree to hold a vote, and reconciliation addresses that.

What's going on, then, is that the Senate cannot pass another healthcare bill.  For the process to move forward, everything must be based on the bill the Senate already passed on Christmas Eve.  The House bill is dead.  "Reconciliation" applies only to whatever amendments House Democrats require before they'll agree to pass the Senate bill.  Those changes will need to take the form of budget items, immunizing them against a Republican filibuster. 

The idea is for the House to pass the Senate healthcare bill exactly as written, and then some sort of budget measure amending it.  Senate Democrats would need to commit to passing the "fix" through reconciliation, because the House has no intention of passing the Senate bill without its own changes.  They'll need a guarantee that their additional language will get 51 votes, and obviously this will all have to be agreed upon in advance.

upping the ante

I'm proposing a new political action committee.  I want a special interest that promises to contribute to the primary and general campaigns of House Democrats who oppose the Senate healthcare bill.

Nancy Pelosi tells them to vote against their constituents' wishes.  I say we should all put our money where our mouths are, and give her philosophy a real test.  It's how Scott Brown got elected.

this is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt me.

Interviewed on ABC's This Week, Nancy Pelosi is urging Blue Dogs to support the liberals' reconciliation plans even if it means losing their jobs.

I've always been fascinated by the total liberal disconnect between their policies and what voters want.  Even if liberals believe they're giving voters what they "need," if it's not what voters actually want then the libs' campaign promises were obviously lies.  That liberals were lying yesterday is confirmed by what they say today.

I do believe that conservatives do something similar, but it's not equivalent.  Yes, half the country doesn't really doesn't understand what's best for them.  But if you give it to them anyway the results will speak for themselves on election day.  After Reagan passed divisive tax cuts he was re-elected in a landslide.  The success of the policy proved Reagan right.  And not just because he thought it was better for some voters than they thought it was, but because voters were measurably better off with the policy than they thought they'd be.

In his closing remarks at the healthcare summit, Obama hinted Democrats would proceed down their unpopular course and allow their judgement to be tested on election day.  That's a reasonable principle, especially if you believe that Democrats' decision today will be vindicated by their re-election in November.  Maybe Obama actually believes that.

But it's rather different when Pelosi admits that the decisions made today will cost Dems jobs in November.  Your voters don't just disagree with this now -- they aren't going to like this by election day, either, she tells Dems.  But don't listen to them -- listen to my voters instead.

what if old people had babies?

Consider the origin of the term, "caesarean section."  Presumably, Mama Caesar did not survive.  And yet the human population suggests that for every mother who died in childbirth, other mothers delivered more than one healthy baby.

It's a matter of risk.  Most women can deliver babies.  Doctors monitor them closely, often finding reasons to be concerned which ultimately turn out to be nothing.  Nature has already stacked the odds in a woman's favor -- the doctor usually just provides security, certainty.

But that's a lot of attention to be paying to women, one after another, across the country, 24/7/365, considering that only a minority will actually need some kind of life-saving intervention.  You might say that sort of care is "inefficient."  After all, there are midwives for this sort of business, aren't there?

And there's a political side to this.  These are young women.  With entire lives, careers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax revenue ahead of them.  Families to raise.  They're significant, vital.  They're necessary.

History shows that most of them will survive childbirth without a doctor.  And some will die even with one; fewer, still, will die because of their doctor.  But there are a lot of resources which stand at the ready, and we will commit heroics to save a mother and her newborn.  Life is that important.

Dying is part of life, too.  The elderly have to die eventually, but that doesn't mean they ever have to die right now.  Heroics won't stop death, but they can often put it off for a time, even if it never seems long enough.

And yet, politically, those heroics -- arguably as effective as all those resources that attend a healthy childbirth without actually contributing anything -- are somehow less necessary.

I noted that doctors watch expectant mothers closely, looking for things to be concerned about.  And yet boards tell us not to screen so often or so early for breast cancer.  Looking too closely, or too frequently, for prostate cancers wastes money.  Our system is even accused of "wasting" care on cancers that might otherwise self-remit -- this is even used to refute our statistically superior cancer survival rates.  Our numbers are "skewed" by finding and treating cancers that would never present on their own.  We look too hard.

I can't say any choice is always wrong.  And they don't call them "tough decisions" for nothing.  But I have a problem -- a real problem -- with liberals' idea that we just pretend we're not making a choice.  Their plan is not free -- they're just relying on small, under-represented minorities of the population to pay for it.  As usual.

Extending lives costs money.  That money -- and the care it might buy -- could be used to help other patients.  Democrats see that trade, and they want to make it.  Starting with the lives that are least "necessary."

Do you want that trade, too?

Do you even see it?

clever

Hat tip to Donald Luskin.

"majority rule"

I'm tired of all this complaining about the filibuster, but I'm even more tired of this idiotic belief that a majority is some kind of critical mass.

People with an IQ over 150 are a small minority, but I'm far more interested in their ideas.  Business owners are a small minority, but they're still the ones we depend on for jobs, and the ones with the best incentives for keeping their own business afloat.

The United States was (were, really) never intended to be a democracy.  Yes, the founders recognized the significance of a majority -- that's why they created the House of Representatives.  But it's a complete misunderstanding of our government to believe that the Senate should therefore be ruled by a majority.

Going back to original intent, the Senate was never supposed to be selected by popular vote in the first place -- prior to the 17th Amendment, Senators were selected by state legislatures.

Second, Senate seats are not apportioned by population anyway.  Each state has two senators, no matter how large or small.  Just because all states have equal say does not imply that a simple majority is some kind of magic number.

Third, the Constitution says nothing about how the Senate must operate -- only that it sets its own rules.

There are three branches to the federal government.  The president is not elected by majority rule, and supreme court justices certainly aren't, either.  The president can overrule Congressional majorities with a veto, but that can also be overridden by even larger majorities in both houses.  The simple majority is only the beginning.

Passing the Senate should be an even greater challenge.    The Senate is not just another House of Representatives -- its very goal is to give legislation a more rigorous test than it would ever get in the majority-rule House.  They don't call it "the world's greatest deliberative body" for nothing.  Technically, it takes a majority vote to get something into the Senate.  Actually getting it through should be harder.

And all that deliberation isn't for entertainment.  It's an opportunity to amend and improve the bill.  If your bill can't be amended, then search it for a partisan agenda.  Universal healthcare may be liberals' ultimate "reform," but to conservatives it's a poison pill.  If your legislation can't even be amended to pass the Senate, maybe the problem's with your legislation.