Where are the votes on health-care reform?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to CNN, "opponents of reform [are] just 11 votes shy of the 216 needed to prevent President Obama from scoring a major victory on his top domestic priority."

Not good, not good at all.

But wasn't it no less an authority than White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs who said, just the other day, that reform would be "the law of the land" within a week, that the votes would be there?

What the hell's going on?

Well, the votes may very well be there -- or may soon be there. Perhaps to highten the drama, perhaps to indicate its ideological leanings, CNN may highlight the opposition to the Senate bill in the House, but that doesn't mean that the White House and the House Democratic leadership aren't building support, and gaining ground, on the other side. Indeed, as House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson indicates, "the votes are there" to pass reform.

Over at Firedoglake yesterday, David Dayen had the horse race -- isn't that what the media think it is? -- at 205-209 against, including "leaners." A later post by Chris Bowers at Open Left noted an addition to the Yes side, making it 206-209, and suggested three uncommitted who should vote Yes, making it, effectively, a tie. If Chris is right, it now comes down to a group of 13 Democrats, a group that is overwhelmingly conservative (they "vote more like Republicans than like Democrats") and pro-Stupak. That's the bad news. The possible good news is that eight of them are relatively new to Congress, elected in 2004 or after, meaning they relied for their election on the support of the current Democratic establishment, and that eight of them voted for the House's own reform bill back in November.

As Chris explains:

This is a pretty right-wing group, but securing a majority of them it possible. The key is probably for groups that supported them in 2008, including the White House, to throw the hammer down and make this vote a pre-condition for support in 2010. They vote more like Republicans than like Democrats, but only have the benefit of being in Congress due to support from Democratic and progressive groups.

Well, the hammer has been thrown down. Britain's Telegraph is reporting that Obama "will refuse to make fund-raising visits during November elections to any district whose representative has not backed the bill," and TPM is reporting that "Health Care for America Now is targeting 11 House Democrats in a series of new ads. The move, according to Politico, is part of the team effort with SEIU, AFSCME and other groups to target 17 House Dems, spending a total of $1.7 million."

In other words, it ain't over yet, even with the media more or less taking the Republican side (on the horse race but even more so on both the content of reform and the process by which it is moving through Congress, both of which expose the media's abject ignorance and unwillingness to overcome it). Gibbs may very well be right, the votes may very well be there, and this admirable if admittedly flawed reform package, to be improved through "patches" passed through reconcilation in the Senate, will soon be the law of the land.

But I'm still deeply worried. This could easily fail. And failure would mean not just no historic reform, reform that would directly benefit millions and millions of Americans as well as the entire country in terms of making health care more fair, more just, and less costly, but Democratic self-destruction. I wonder if the Democrats really understand this, and I wonder if those still on the fence have any idea what this is really all about.

**********

Here, via TPM, an ad targeting Rep. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania (who's not one of the 13):