ObamaCare Mixed Messages – Is This Thing Happening Or Not?

Cartoon via: Theo Spark

Charles Krauthammer was predicted a couple of days ago on Special Report, that the bill would pass the House, but die in the Senate because the Reconciliation process was so messy and complicated. Last night he was predicting a 50/50 chance that it would pass the House…that’s where the real fight is.

Today he says, one thing is for sure, Obama is pushing onward:

The man who vowed to undo Washington’s wicked ways has directed the Congress to ram Obamacare through, by one vote if necessary, under the parliamentary device of “budget reconciliation.” The man who ran as a post-partisan is determined to remake a sixth of the U.S. economy despite the absence of support from a single Republican in either house, the first time anything of this size and scope has been enacted by pure party-line vote.

Marc Thiessen explains in the Washington Post how Pelosi will try to game the Stupak 12, and how they have approximately 0% chance of getting what they want if they vote yes:

Stupak and the blue dog Democrats in the House have no leverage if they go along with Pelosi in a reconciliation strategy. The only way they can ensure that the abortion language and other provisions they oppose are eliminated is to reject reconciliation entirely — and demand that the House and Senate start over with clean legislation.

Dan Perrin at Red State says, give it up, Killing ObamaCare is a Rational Act:

Rep. Stupak and his gang of 12 to 20 pro-life Dems, are no doubt being encouraged by their colleagues to please kill-this-bill so we can run screaming from the room. Save us from Captain Ahab and the irrational Speaker who are hell-bent on making us walk the plank again. Please save us from the fatal political injury that will come from months more of health care as it winds it way through the House and then the Senate — where the Republicans have promised a scorched earth, time-consuming policy of death-by-amendment. Remember, Easter is too soon for the House to act — imagine how long it will take in the Senate?

I wrote earlier that I expected a block of no votes to come from the progressives. They may be starting to flex their muscles.

Read the entire article, and be heartened that the gravitational pull is decidedly away from the yes vote. Perrin argues that the Dems’ “survival instinct is talking over”, and Dems are “moving-to-the-safe-and-sunny-pastures of No”.

Dick Morris is ringing alarm bells, however, with OBAMA BRIBES, THREATENS, AND REWARDS CONGRESS TO PASS HEALTH CARE:

Congressman Jim Matheson isn’t the only one benefiting from Obama’s desperation to pass the bill:

…there is a reward waiting for House members who ignore the wishes and interests of their constituents and vote for Obama’s health care proposals. Alan Mollohan has had a pesky FBI investigation hanging over his head for a few years. Now, presto, right before the health care vote, it went away. The Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder, announced that the FBI was closing the inquiry.

Mollohan’s sin? He pushed for earmarks for nonprofit enterprises in his district and then went into a real estate deal in Florida with the head of the company under financial terms that were distinctly favorable to the Congressman. But Mollohan toes the party line and is now getting his unjust reward.

With health care reform coming up for a vote in the next few days, such tactics send a message to the House where Pelosi is having trouble lining up her votes: That Obama will do anything – anything at all – to pass this bill.

Morris is asking people to CALL THESE SWING CONGRESSMEN ON HEALTH CARE:

These thirty Democratic Congressmen all voted for Obamacare the first time around. But Pelosi cannot count on their votes again as Obama tries to jam the bill through using reconciliation in the Senate. These members are all vulnerable and are frightened of the voter backlash their support for Obamacare has kindled.

Please click on the link for the list of Dems and their contact info.

See also Charmaine Yoest’s excellent oped in the WSJ that removes all doubt on the question of abortion funding in the health care bills being considered.

In November, presidential adviser David Axelrod, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” also talked around the Hyde Amendment, saying that the president “doesn’t believe this bill should change the status quo as it relates to the issue of abortion.” But then Mr. Axelrod claimed that “this shouldn’t be a debate about abortion” before concluding that there were discussions in Congress about “how to adjust [the abortion language bill] accordingly.”

Apparently, his definition of “adjust” means opening up the spigot for the abortion lobby. The president’s latest proposal mirrors legislation that has passed the Senate, which doesn’t include a Hyde Amendment, and would inevitably establish abortion as a fundamental health-care service for the following reasons:

• It would change existing law by allowing federally subsidized health-care plans to pay for abortions and could require private health-insurance plans to cover abortion.

• It would impose a first-ever abortion tax—a separate premium payment that will be used to pay for elective abortions—on enrollees in insurance plans that covers abortions through newly created government health-care exchanges.

• And it would fail to protect the rights of health-care providers to refuse to participate in abortions.

The president’s plan goes further than the Senate bill on abortion by calling for spending $11 billion over five years on “community health centers,” which include Planned Parenthood clinics that provide abortions.

The bottom line is that the president wants to deploy words that sound soothing like “balance” and “adjust.” Meanwhile, the courts are rendering precedent with stark words like “mandatory.”

When confronted by House Minority Leader John Boehner about abortion funding during the health-care summit last week, the president dropped his head and looked down at the table. How revealing.

And do not miss Pundette, who sees Obama’s recent explicit promises to the left to “make improvements down the road” as another tactic to win votes, and a sign of desperation. That’s what conservatives have been saying from the very beginning. Obviously, the plan would be to pass something/anything, now…get their foot in the door, and make the necessary changes that will lead to their beloved single payer system “later on down the road”.

President Obama tells progressives to take heart: he is still with them, and the Senate health care bill is merely the foundation of a government-controlled medical system:

Obama argued to the group of progressive members that his health care reform bill should be looked at as the foundation of reform, that can be built on in the future. He asked them to help gather votes for the final health care battle and promised that as soon as the bill was signed into law, he’d continue to push to make it stronger. But in a matter of weeks, he stressed, he could sign into law legislation that would lead to 31 million new people being insured, including the woman who wrote him.

It has been surprising to some people that he is still fighting for health care reform, Obama told the group. “He said, and I think he’s absolutely right, that a lot of people, I think, are surprised at his persistence that in some ways this health care reform has been lifted from the near dead to becoming a reality in the next couple of weeks,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). “He said, quite specifically, that what we could say to people was that once the bill passes the president made a commitment to work to make improvements down the road.”

They can believe him on this one.