And all the kings horses, and all the kings men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again…OK, we aren’t there, yet.

But the left is starting to flex its muscles and are beginning to be annoyed, and really concerned about all the compromises that have been made thus far.

The pro-abortion forces know that there is a good chance the bill will not go to conference, where the leadership can change it at will. The first thing that would go would be the abortion restrictions — but having a House-Senate conference is not a certainty. The fastest way to the President’s desk, is to send the Senate bill directly to the House for an up or down vote – if it passes.

As you, dear reader know, I do not think the bill will make it past the Senate floor, but many on both sides disagree — pessimistic opponents and rose-colored-glasses-wearing-proponents. I am mentioning the “ping-pong” strategy of skipping conference because the pro-abortion forces cannot take the risk that Senator Nelson’s demands make it into the bill and the bill goes to the House, without going to (as they see it) the cleansing conference.

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At least, he’s claiming that he’s been forbidden it by Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence Diocese, and Bishop Tobin hasn’t denied it - and Tobin has denied that he’s ordered priest under his authority to actually deny Kennedy the Sacrament. Bishop Tobin’s office has also released a letter indicating that the bishop has chastised the Congressman on the subject of abortion since at least 2007; which will call into question the accuracy of Kennedy’s accusation that this is all about the Church’s firm line on abortion funding. It’s probably a factor, and it’s certainly true that Rep. Kennedy has been obdurate in his heresy* for some time, so this is merely the latest salvo.

Still, it’d be nice if we didn’t have to deal with this particular legacy Congressman. There’s actually a serious candidate this go-round: John Loughlin. State legislator, business owner, former military; not to be unkind, but Kennedy really hasn’t worked a day in his [expletive deleted] life, and it shows. Like, for example, in Kennedy’s ability to get himself sufficiently in trouble with the Church on this issue so as to actually be denied the Sacrament.

That takes skill.

Moe Lane

*The fact that the Church has neither the ability nor the particular desire to punish Rep. Kennedy (or other avowedly pro-abortion Catholics) for their shared heresy does not make it any less of one.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

That was Rep. Stupak’s (DEMOCRAT) blunt response to David Axelrod’s assertion that the pro-life language currently in the health care rationing bill would be ‘adjusted.’ Stupak’s having none of it:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) pledged on Tuesday morning to defeat healthcare reform legislation if his abortion amendment is taken out, saying 10 to 20 anti-abortion-rights Democrats would vote against a bill with weaker language.

“They’re not going to take it out,” Stupak said on “Fox and Friends,” referring to Senate Democrats. “If they do, healthcare will not move forward.”

See Hot Air for the video. Stupak claims to have more than enough votes to shut down any final version that removes his amendment, which is both false and true. It’s false because the closeness of the original vote reflected a lot of horse-trading on the individual Member of Congress level; theoretically, the Speaker of the House could simply pressure the Democrats who got to vote ‘no’ last time to vote ‘yes’ this time.  It’s true because one of the reasons that they were able to get a final vote was because while the Stupak amendment was scored by NRLC, the final bill was not.  Strip out Stupak, and a vote for health care rationing becomes a vote for federal funding of abortions.  The NRLC pretty much cannot not score that appropriately.

I close with this observation: this situation for the Democrats is pretty much entirely due to the decision by House Republicans to oppose the health care rationing bill en masse.  They’re doing that because the Congressional Democratic leadership decided to shut out everybody except themselves and various outside lobbyists when it came time to put this monstrosity of a bill together.  And because the President didn’t intervene when it became clear that the process was disrupting his narrative, we’re now at the point where the Democratic party has to decide which side of the abortion debate is safer to infuriate.

But don’t feel bad for them: after all, they didn’t learn a blessed thing from their mistakes over the ’stimulus’ and cap-and-trade.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

From the diaries by Erick

As you well know, Speaker Pelosi’s version of President Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul passed the House by a razor thin margin of 220-215 late Saturday night.  Seldom have more Americans been more aware of a piece of legislation passing Congress, as news of this historical occasion filled newspapers, blogs, and email and twitter accounts from coast-to-coast over the weekend.  Ironically, final passage was delivered largely by pro-life Democrats, who earlier in the evening got their wish on an up-or-down vote on an amendment that would prohibit federal funds from being used to pay for abortions or to pay part of the cost of any healthcare plan that covered abortions.  The amendment passed easily, by a vote of 240-194.

This vote was the culmination of six straight months – and many would argue years or decades – of negotiations, maneuvers, and secret deals.  Keep in mind, dear reader, that we are talking about a dream come true for most Democrats, and all liberal Democrats.  The House of Representatives actually passed fundamental and even transformational reform of the American healthcare system.  Never mind that H.R. 3962 creates at least 111 new federal boards, commissions, and bureaucracies, or that it raises taxes by $766 billion over 10 years, or represents a federal government takeover of 1/6th of the American economy – these are all considered good things by the Democrat leadership and most rank-and-file Democrat members.  Even better news for liberals, House passage of this bill comes at a time when Democrats fully control the U.S. Senate and have a White House unalterably committed to the same goal.  One would expect House Democrats and liberal sympathizers to be jubilant on their accomplishment. What could possibly stop them from signing healthcare reform into law in mere weeks?

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From the Hill:

“More than 40 lawmakers vowed to oppose the final healthcare bill if the House language on abortion is not removed.

Reps. Diana DeGette (Colo.) and Louise Slaughter (N.Y.) led the group of Democrats in writing to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) threatening to withhold support for a final conference report if it strictly prohibits federal funding for abortion services.

“We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women’s right to choose any further than current law,” reads a draft of the letter. DeGette and Slaughter, who is the chairwoman of the powerful Rules Committee, also wrote President Barack Obama requesting a meeting on the issue next week.”

The pro-abortion Democrats may have two options: a) accept pro-life language prohibiting federal funding of abortions, or b) kill their own health bill.

Editor’s Note: I’ve taken out the top of this post, which responded to Ramesh Ponnuru’s post about my NRLC criticisms. I’ve been saying we should not let this become a debate on abortion or other single issues and therefore don’t think I can justify in my mind continuing that conversation. But, the larger point on the “Stupak Minimum” is worth keeping as it plays to our larger goal — defeat of the health care legislation.

As I wrote the other day,

I think the Stupak Amendment was an instance of the pro-life community not seeing the forest for the trees and it should have been opposed. But I am willing to admit I could be wrong. What I do know is that the House Republican Leadership has been very, very good at combating the Democrats’ legislative agenda. That House GOP Leadership encouraged a vote for Stupak should not be second guessed lightly. It is a lot easier for me to Monday morning quarterback the vote than it was for these men and women on the front lines to make a decision.

I am not going to second guess them and, in fact, as I wrote this morning, I suspect there will be pro-life language in the final bill, but weak enough for pro-choice votes. After all, the Democrats will throw zealous abortion advocates under the bus as fast as lightening if the end result is a federal take over of 1/6th the American economy.

It may, in fact, turn out that Stupak is the undoing of the health care bill. I don’t know and, again, won’t second guess the House GOP Leadership, which firmly believes it made the right call. Our presumption going forward should be that they made the right call, regardless of our personal opinions.

More importantly, what I would suggest is that conservatives not turn the health care fight into a fight over abortion tactics and policy. The bill is two thousand freedom sucking pages of crap and is, with or without Stupak, very clearly not conducive to a culture of life. Abortion is only one aspect.

Let me also suggest one strategy consistent with what I wrote this morning:

After the GOP is done demanding things come out, not be ameliorated or added, there will be no bill left that the left can support. Additionally, the GOP must orchestrate a strategy to put Democrats up for election in difficult positions — offering up amendments that the Democrats cannot say no to, but that take away votes from the overall legislation once agreed to.

The GOP and outside interest groups should now agitate for the “Stupak Minimum,” i.e. the Stupak amendment language must be the baseline for pro-life language in the health care legislation. Anything less should be opposed.

The Democrats will never go for it. But above all else, we must remember the strategy must be to kill the bill, not improve it.

Like wolves on a fresh killed deer, the liberals keep tearing up Democrats over Representative Stupak’s amendment, which forces pro-abortion Dems to vote for pro-life protections for the innocents.

This has sites like FireDogLake completely bent:

“Is there anyone who did not see this coming, besides the over hundred Democrats in the House who call themselves pro-choice? Ben Nelson (D-NE) is now demanding the Senate also include the Stupak amendment language. Did anyone really think the Senate’s conservative Democrats would let any part of the House bill be to the right of the Senate? If Nelson gets his way (and when hasn’t Nelson gotten his way this year?), so much for “don’t worry, Obama will fix it in conference.”

From Politico,

“Senator Nelson is strongly pro-life and was pleased the Stupak amendment passed with such strong support,” Thompson said in a statement. “He believes that no federal money—including subsidies or tax credits–should be used to buy insurance coverage for abortion. This is a very important issue to Senator Nelson and it is highly unlikely he would support a bill that doesn’t clearly prohibit federal dollars from going to abortion.”

“It is a good thing NARAL and Planned Parenthood did not put up a fight before the Stupak amendment was added to the House bill. It is always so much easier to push things to the left in the Senate. . . .

But NARAL and Planned Parenthood got rolled by Speaker Pelosi, and now pro-abortion Senators will be forced to make the same choice pro-abortion House Dems did, but this time, the NARALs and Planned Parenthoods of the world can’t just roll over and play dead, like they did for their pal the Speaker.

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It is more and more clear that the House of Representatives will not keep Bart Stupak’s amendment in the health care legislation.

Harry Reid will put something abortion related in the Senate version, but not so strong as to turn off pro-abortion Senators. Likewise, Obama is already saying this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill, and is instructing Congress not to go overboard.

Stupak will go out. National Right to Life, as per its usual operating procedure, will no doubt eek out some sort of minor compromise that undercuts the rest of the conservative movement and other pro-life groups — a compromise that does very little, but from which NRLC can raise some money. Abortions will get funded by the feds if Obamacare passes. You can bank on it.

Let me be clear to the conservative movement and the organizations participating in the health care debate: the fight over health care is about freedom, not your ridiculous little scorecards.

The Democrat strategy is going to be very simple. If the GOP and its outside interest groups raise an issue, the Democrats with a token Republican will hammer out a Grand Compromise ^TM to appear accommodationist and bipartisan.

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In the wake of the House vote for President Obama’s government takeover of health care, some conservative commentators are asking what may have been had House Republicans decided to follow Rep. John Shadegg’s (R-AZ) advice to vote present on the Stupak-Pitts amendment.  The amendment prohibits the federal government from spending any funds to provide abortion under the plan’s public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that covers abortion.

Sixty-four Democrats voted with Republicans in passing Stupak.  The argument says that had Republicans voted “present” or “no” on the amendment, it would have failed.  The theory is that those sixty-four Democrats would have abandoned the final bill without the prohibition included, effectively killing the overall effort to socialize the nation’s health care system.

But that thinking represents the triumph of hope over experience.  It supposes that Nancy Pelosi, who has shown herself to be nothing if not a cold-blooded and ruthless political operative, would not take any other necessary steps to find the votes necessary to pass the bill.  The only reason Stupak was allowed to come to a vote in the first place was because Pelosi was willing to shiv two-thirds of her caucus to get the bill passed.  Pelosi, and Obama, would have moved any obstacle, made any promise, and broken any number of arms to get the White House a “victory” on health care, however hollow that victory may ultimately turn out to be.

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The Democrats’ health care legislation passed the House of Representatives on Saturday by three votes. Under the Democrats’ plan, should you fail to obtain health insurance, you will go to jail for five years.

Leading up to the vote, pro-lifers engaged in a battle against each other over the “Stupak Amendment” offered by pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak. By Sunday, pro-lifers were suffering numerous recriminations from their allies. The logic is that had Stupak not passed, there would be enough votes to ensure the health care bill did not pass.

While I tend to agree with the argument, I think we miss a central point: Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats would have just done something else to get the legislation passed. By using pro-life issues, however, the Democrats were able to divide the GOP.

As the sun rises this Monday morning, let’s consider a few points.

1. Whether Stupak passed or not, the health care legislation would have passed on Saturday. In fact, most of the Republican leaders on the Hill encouraged a yes vote for the Stupak Amendment because (A) its passage would send a strong message that there is a pro-life majority in the House of Representatives and (B) its passage would not affect the final outcome. Regardless of how you view Stupak, we know now there is a pro-life majority in even this Democratic House of Representatives and Stupak very clearly will not affect the final outcome.

2. We know that this House legislation is dead on arrival in the United States Senate. As a result of its passage, a number of Blue Dog Democrats are now extremely vulnerable to defeat, as are a number of others. The act of voting for the legislation, and the anger generated by it receiving a majority vote, will doom a significant number of Democrats.

3. Because the Stupak Amendment passed, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and a host of power left-wing interest groups that supported Obamacare, now are joined with a bunch of groups on the right in opposition to the measure.

4. Passing Obamacare in the manner it passed Saturday has created fresh, new divisions within the Democratic Party. While the media would prefer to look at Republican divisions, the Democrats are so full of gaping wounds now, they might bleed to death by November of 2010.

I think the Stupak Amendment was an instance of the pro-life community not seeing the forest for the trees and it should have been opposed. But I am willing to admit I could be wrong. What I do know is that the House Republican Leadership has been very, very good at combating the Democrats’ legislative agenda. That House GOP Leadership encouraged a vote for Stupak should not be second guessed lightly. It is a lot easier for me to Monday morning quarterback the vote than it was for these men and women on the front lines to make a decision.

At the end of the day we need to trust the people who said a yes vote was worth casting. Now is also not the time to throw the pro-lifers under the bus. They stand with us and, because of their tough stance, we are now ironically joined by pro-abortion groups standing shoulder to shoulder with pro-life groups in opposition to Obamacare.

Life is fully of ironies. Let’s savor this one and fight on.

Carly Fiorina truly is panicked. The NRSC has been spooked by the Scozzafava/Hoffman/Owens race, and is more or less going to leave Fiorina out to dry. And while she got the support of conservative favorite Tom Coburn to match Chuck DeVore’s Jim DeMint, the rest of her supporters paint a different picture. Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Lisa Murkowski: to many of us, these are what is wrong with the Republican Senate caucus.

So now she’s launched prematurely, shot the wad of endorsements she has in the middle of a week, rushed to pander to the right by appearing in the OC Register, but even that’s not enough. Now she’s making outrageous attacks on Chuck DeVore and the rest of us who favor an Internet free of burdensome government regulation.

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They could have saved themselves, but instead, they followed a tortured inside-the-beltway logic that will be lost on the likely voter — I voted for it, to improve it. Uh-huh.

Did members cut spending? End funding of abortion? Enforce the prohibition against illegal immigrants getting the new health care benefit? Cut the $759 billion in new taxes? Curtail the gun health care database? Stop the Medicare cuts? No, oh. I see.

Sounds a whole lot like that famous line, “I voted for it, right before I voted against it.”

Blue Dogs and other Democratic Members of Congress are deluding themselves if they think they can state publicly they voted yes, to improve it. Or that a conference with the White House, the Senate and the House will produce a bill closer to the U.S. Senate’s version.

Instead, they are looking hard for excuses to do the wrong thing.

And if they are looking to end the unending political pain of the Speaker’s health care politics — then the way to end it is to end the bill, and vote no.

Otherwise, they will have to defend their vote in their election, and vote again on the Conference Report — if the bill makes it through the Senate, a very dubious proposition.

Instead, they will be walking the plank, the bill then dies in the Senate — and many of their number will then die in November, 2010.

While the nation is going through the worst recession in modern history, our dollar is deflating because of government debt and we are electronically printing a trillion dollars; unemployment is at 10.2%, let’s tax the American people $752 billion (three quarters of a trillion dollars) and create a new entitlement and spend $1.8 trillion on something less than one in five Americans think is their top concern: health care. Three-quarters of likely voters believe the plan will force employers to give up providing insurance, shredding the “if you like it you can keep it promise.”

All while the American public overwhelmingly oppose the plan, and for triple political pain points, we can have the biggest votes on abortion, immigration, taxes, guns, the public option, Medicare cuts, massive spending and government control all rolled up in one vote, days after special elections that saw Independent voters run like scaled cats, screaming from the Democrats.

And at the same time as the President’s approval rating among likely voters glides ever downward..

Genius, isn’t it? And rational too.

The news keeps getting tougher for the House Leadership in their irrational quest to pass their ObamaCare bill.

First, the Associated Press is reporting the bill will cost $1.2 Trillion without the doctor fix of $250 billion.

The new total will be $1.45 trillion — because the House Leadership intends to create a “self-executing rule” that would pull the doctor fix apart from the House ObamaCare bill — in order to keep the cost at $1.2 Trillion, then fuse the doc fix back into the ObamaCare bill after it passes the House.

It is like a magic trick, presto — $250 billion in new spending just appears in the bill after it passes.

Meanwhile, the new $1.45 billion ought to send the Blue Dogs scampering from the bill.

Then, of course, the House is finally grappling with two thermonuclear issues: abortion and immigration.

But, as numerous news reports state, the Democratic Leaders still do not have the votes for the bill — rumors abound, the most credible put the House vote count at less than 200 for the bill.

The more fundamental question is, why is the U.S. House voting before the U.S. Senate? House leadership has already moved the vote from Thursday to Friday, and are now talking about the vote being moved to Saturday or Monday of Tuesday of next week. House leaders should just punt the vote until after the Senate, and save their members — and themselves — the pain of voting.

Especially when the Senate is now talking post-Thanksgiving for its floor vote?

Why is the Speaker forcing its members to walk the plank again, prior to the Senate vote, especially when it is likely that the bill will never get off the Senate floor?

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The abortion issue, you may recall, was described by George Stephanopoulos as “the gravest threat” to the health reform bill. The largest concentration of Democratic NO votes on health care reform are because of the abortion issue.

So, naturally, in an article about Speak Pelosi’s efforts to rally votes for ObamaCare, the New York Times actually talked about other issues besides the public option as critical to passage of the bill. Here is what the New York Times said about abortion yesterday:

“House Democratic leaders are still trying to figure out exactly how to limit the use of federal money for abortions.”

In other words, they know that their current language will not satisfy, among others, the Catholic Church, which issued a change it or else threat. But the Democratic Leadership has not figured out what to do. The demands of the pro-life Democrats have been really straight-forward, give us a vote on our amendments to ban federally funded abortions and allow medical providers the ability to refuse to perform or help perform abortions.

What this really means is that the Speaker does not want to compromise and allow pro-life amendments, unless she has absolutely no other choice in the matter.

On that issue, the NYT reports “Ms. Pelosi said she had not decided whether lawmakers would be allowed to offer amendments on the House floor.”

The Speaker will not allow the pro-life Democrats to offer and get votes on their amendments. She has not said yes, meaning she is now at no.

Further, the need to get CBO to score the bill before it gets to the House floor was also acknowledged as another complication, as the NYT reported: “In addition, before taking their bill to the House floor, Democrats need to get a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.” This is no small matter, since scoring takes about two week, once CBO has the language in hand.

There are other issues that are causing intra-Dem heartburn, and one of them is the Democratic Governors who are very concerned about the unfunded mandates the federal government is imposing on State governments. A Medicaid concerns letter signed by more than a dozen (14) Democratic Senators, sent late last week to Senators Reid, Baucus and Dodd, can be found here.

It is useful to note that the Speaker does not have the votes for ObamaCare now, nor will she likely anytime soon. Other vote draining issues on the Democratic side are the cuts to Medicare Advantage, the public option, the spending and tax levels of the bill and whether to give illegal immigrants benefits under the bill.

Apparently the secret to passing ObamaCare is for the President to acknowledge that all Members of Congress have something they don’t like about the bill, but to vote for it regardless:

AP reports the President said in New York yesterday:

“The bill you least like” improves coverage for millions, he said in New York. “Let’s make sure that we keep our eye on the prize.”

Seems a little strange to announce this in New York, a blue state, that members need to hold their nose and vote for health care reform. Is this the winning formula? Is holding New York members of Congress becoming tough? And if the President needed to say this in New York, what does this mean for the rest of the country?

The roll call vote on the motion to proceed to S. 1776 is instructive of what happens to a bill that cannot stop the filibuster on the motion to proceed. President Obama and the White House asked Senator Reid to put $247 billion in new spending off budget to buy off the American Medical Association. Majority Leader Reid was embarrassed. The White House, Senator Reid said, wanted him to bring the bill up. He needed 60 votes to stop the filibuster. He got 47 votes. Missed the mark by 13 votes. Here is the simple filibuster math (60 minus 13 = 47.)

Perhaps this is why President Obama did not go public on the vote, he did not want to risk a Chicago is knocked out in the first round of voting despite his personal lobbying for the Olympics type experience.

This is a lesson for everyone: no cloture, no laundry. And 60 votes in the Senate is a tough number to hit, even with 60 Democratic voting Senators (58 Dems and two independents). S. 1776 is dead. The bill did not even make it past the motion to proceed.

Today, AP ran a story questioning whether President Obama has the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster on ObamaCare. Really? Really, really. Here is some of Charles Babington’s piece:

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I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.

Shortly after dusk on October 16, 1859 a party of eighteen heavily armed men, the self-styled Provisional Army of the United States, departed the Kennedy farm house in Washington County, Maryland. They made their way south, crossed the Potomac into Virginia at Harper’s Ferry. In short order they seized the B&O Railroad trestles crossing the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, the US Armory and Arsenal, the US Rifle Works, cut all telegraph access, and took hostage two prominent citizens.

Their objective was to ignite a slave rebellion in Virginia which would spread and destroy the institution of chattel slavery in the South.

John Brown’s Raid was as much a signal event in the nation’s inexorable slide towards civil war as Edmund Ruffin’s firing the first shot on Fort Sumter. It should be viewed as the death knell of the non-violent anti-slavery struggle in the United States.

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From the diaries by Erick

Yesterday, Americans United for Life’s legislative action arm, AUL Action gave America a much-needed reality check with a groundbreaking new online ad that dispels the deceptive rhetoric in Washington and gives clear evidence how your taxpayer dollars will go to funding abortions in health care reform.

Our new online video ad, “Don’t Be Fooled: Abortion is in Health Care Reform,” is a part of our “Real Health Care Respects Life” initiative to mobilize pro-life opposition nationwide to abortion in health care reform.

This ad cuts through the deceptive rhetoric of pro-abortion politicians and shows how American taxpayers will be forced to pay for abortions against their conscience. The ad highlights current health care reform proposals which would allow abortion in health care reform.

You can learn more about how your tax dollars could go to abortions in health care reform in my op-ed in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Fund Abortion” or you can go to www.RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com.

While Senator Snowe’s yes vote in the Senate Finance Committee was a shock to liberals and conservatives, it is neither a defeat for conservatives nor a victory for liberals. The bill would have passed Committee regardless of how Sen. Snowe voted.

Senator Snowe, in her own words, said her vote was a maybe on the Senate floor. Smart political observers like Carrie Budoff Brown at Politico understand that Snowe’s vote radically increases the likelihood of Dem-on-Dem political violence over any single significant move to the left that the Democratic Leadership contemplates when they attempt to merge the bill.

Think of the Snowe vote as tent pegs holding the bill in place, while liberal generated wind storms attempt to move the tent to the left. The chances of the pegs coming out and the tent being blown like a tumbleweed are real and will be devastating to the bill.

Plus, Senator Snowe’s voice now carries a high-wattage amplifier with it inside the Democratic leadership. The liberals want a public option? Lose Snowe. Want to bring up a Vapor bill? Snowe is at no. Want to spring legislative language on the Senate without a CBO score of the language? Snowe is at no and so are eight other Democratic Senators who sent a letter to Majority Leader Reid last week requesting a CBO score on actual legislative language and a 72 hour review period by the public of the bill prior to its consideration on the Senate floor. The letter was backed up with threats by the Democratic Senators to employ procedural hurdles if there request is not met, as Congressional Quarterly reported on October 6:

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The DailyKos is reporting that out of the 83 signatories to the we will vote no if there is no public option pledge, only 46 remain standing firm. The rest of the progressives have caved. For these 46 liberal Members, a robust public plan means a Medicare plus 5 percent reimbursement rate for providers. However, the Blue Dogs are pushing a rival “negotiated provider reimbursement rate” which the progressives say effectively kills the public option.

Progressives are being squeezed by two fronts, one is their dropping numbers of Members who will stand firm on the public plan or they will vote no pledge, and two, on the negotiated Medicare reimbursement rates which they believe will gut the public option. So, 46 Democrats signed a letter to the Speaker demanding no negotiated rates or we vote no because it will kill the public option.

The Progressives are losing the battle, however, according to the DailyKos, because the direction of the bill is clearly moving to negotiated rates.

But 46 liberals are still more than enough to kill the bill with their votes alone. These 46 votes likely does not account for the other Dem NO votes because of any of the following issues: taxes, spending, abortion, immigration or other bill-killing issues. According to pro-life Democrats, there are 40 NO Dem votes against ObamaCare solely on the issue of abortion, for example.

Curiouser and curiouser said Alice as she went down the rabbit hole…