“We’ll have the votes when the House votes, I think, within the next week,” Gibbs said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Gibbs added that those on next week’s Sunday talk shows “will be talking about healthcare not as a presidential proposal but I think as the law of the land.”
Nancy Pelosi has given notice to members of the U.S. House that the plan is to have the vote by Friday or Saturday of this week. The House starts the mark-up on the reconciliation bill today.
One thing that has been lost in all the process talk in the Senate is that once the Senate bill passes the House, it’s game over for the Republicans. Once the bill passes we have health care reform and the only remaining question is whether we will also have the reconciliation fixes to the bill as well. All the public discussion about procedure was one big psy-ops operations aimed at scaring wavering House Democrats. TPM explains:
All week, Republicans have been dropping “friendly” words of warning to House Democrats. At their weekly press availability Tuesday, Republican Senate leaders gave it the hard sell.
“[W]e believe that what the president is doing is asking House Democrats to hold hands, jump off a cliff, and hope Harry Reid catches them,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). “And Senator Reid’s not going to have any incentive to catch them because by the time the reconciliation bill gets to the Senate, the president will have already signed the health-care bill into law, and he’ll be well on his way to Indonesia.”
Gee, thanks for your concern Lamar. I’m sure you only have the Democratic party’s best interests in mind.
By the end of the week, Republicans were more or less candid about the strategy. Gregg basically admitted to the divide and conquer strategy to Huffington Post. “Absolutely,” Gregg said. “We are trying to open the eyes of our colleagues on the Democratic side who are being solicited with goodies that the boat into which all these goodies are being put may not ever come to dock.”
The party has united behind the bill. 83% of MoveOn members support its passage and organized labor has threatened to primary Democrats who vote against reform. At the same time, the opposition to the bill is weakening and is less organized. The Democratic party’s fortunes in 2010 and beyond are tied up in this bill and I think most Democrats know this.