Drudge has the story... according to the latest whip count:
At least 44 more moderate Members of the Democrat Caucus have gone on the record in opposition to the current health care bill in the House, a Hill source claims. Likewise, at least 57 liberal Members of the Democrat Caucus have gone on the record saying they will vote against a health care bill without a strong public option.
Unless multiple Democrats flip on their stated position on health care, Speaker Pelosi lacks the votes to pass a bill through the House on the strength of Democrat votes alone.
He includes a list of who's who and a recap of their public statements.
I fully expect the threats and attempted bribes to begin after Zero yuks it up tonight, but as of right now, that's where it stands and it doesn't look good.
Interesting side note - when you look at the Dems against, they're mostly from the heartland,while the ones shilling for Obama's goverment run healthcare plan are mostly from the coasts. And particularly from bankrupt, high tax states like California.
I think it was GOP Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee who characterized ObamaCare as a colonization of the heartland by the East and West coasts...
Update: But wait there's more! Mess NBC has released excerpts from Zero's address tonight:
Now Is The Time For Action!
The White House has released advanced excerpts of President Obama's remarks tonight. And, per these remarks, it appears he will come out swinging on health care.
"I am not the first president to take up this cause," he is expected to say, "but I am determined to be the last."
More: "[T]he time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care."
Later, he adds: "And I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.
"But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now."
As far as the particulars go, Obama will say that the reform he seeks will accomplish three goals. "It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. It’s a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge – not just government and insurance companies, but employers and individuals. And it’s a plan that incorporates ideas from Senators and Congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans – and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and general election."
Lather, rinse, repeat. Same old garbage. From 'magical beans for all' to 'By G-d we will have magical beans for all!' And I'm sure they'll be a reference to Teddy somewhere.
Speaking of special interests, there an interesting comment on the Mess NBC site that I'll repro here before it gets scrubbed, butit links to HuffPo column. Aside from Dem Congressman Max Baucus' horrendous provision for draconian fines if you don't buy healthcare, he stupidly left something he shouldn't have on the PDF version of the bill:
"In the Properties dialogue box of the PDF, in the "author" slot, the name Liz Fowler appears. Fowler is a Baucus staffer who was with the senator in the early part of this decade but left to take a breather in the private sector and only returned to Capitol Hill last year. During her time in the private sector, can you guess where Fowler worked?
She was the VP for Public Policy and External Affairs at WellPoint, the health insurance parent company of Blue Cross. And while Fowler was an executive at Wellpoint, there was this unfortunate but all too typical incident:
Blue Cross of California [parent company: Wellpoint] "routinely" violated state law when it canceled individual health insurance coverage after policyholders got pregnant or sick, making no attempt to determine whether they did anything to merit such "harsh" treatment, according to a state investigation of practices that appear to be industrywide. [...]
As a result of its unprecedented investigation, the Department of Managed Health Care on Thursday said that it had fined Blue Cross $1 million -- an amount immediately criticized by canceled policyholders and consumer advocates as too small to matter to an insurer whose parent company, WellPoint Inc., earned $3.1 billion in profit last year on revenue of $57 billion.
Incidentally, Wellpoint is still doing this to its customers.
And so a former executive of a company that was penalized for rescinding the policies of sick people was tasked by Max Baucus with writing potentially the most powerful health care reform proposal to be crapped out of the Senate. No wonder it contains individual mandates but no public option. It's a proposal that snares us all and makes us, in effect, government mandated prisoners of the health insurance industry."
Talk about your special interests! Heh!
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