Throughout the Massachusetts Senate race, we heard the number “41” repeated over and over — as in Scott Brown would become the 41st Republican senator, whose presence would deprive Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority and stop President Obama’s national health care plan. But now that Brown actually is the 41st GOP senator, the most important number in politics is 218 — as in, can House Speaker Nancy Pelosi amass a majority of 218 votes for House Democrats to pass the health care bill already approved by the Senate, thus sending it to Obama’s desk to be signed into law.
That is the essence of what’s known as Plan B. The Senate is out of the game, now that Democrats no longer have their 60-vote majority. Any new version of a bill combining elements of the House and Senate versions won’t be able to get through a Senate with 41 Republicans united against it. So the only course of action available to Democrats is to have the House pass the Senate bill verbatim, and then promise to quickly make changes to satisfy the objections of lawmakers in both houses.
But to do that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will need 218 votes to pass the Senate bill. And all across the House, Democrats and Republicans are doing the math.
When the House passed its version of the health care bill last November, the margin was 220 to 215. But the House has changed since then. First, Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler, a strong supporter of national health care, has quit to become president of a Washington-based think tank. That leaves Democrats with 219 votes. Then Republican Rep. Joseph Cao, the only GOP lawmaker to vote for the bill, announced that he would vote against it the next time, leaving Democrats with 218 — the bare majority needed to pass the health care bill.
In addition, the House Republican leadership calculates that 11 Democrats who voted for the health care bill will likely vote against the Senate version because it lacks the House bill’s tighter language on the subject of abortion. These are Democrats who voted for the so-called Stupak amendment and then voted for final passage of the health care bill because it contained the Stupak amendment language. If 11 of them do indeed defect, Democrats will be down to 207 votes — 11 short of the number needed for passage.
How to close that gap? Well, three Democrats who voted against the bill — Reps. Brian Baird, Dennis Moore, and John Tanner — have decided to retire. No longer facing voter wrath over health care, they might be convinced to change their votes. If they all changed their position, Democrats would get to 210. But after that, what? Pelosi would still need eight more votes.
It is widely believed that the Speaker held some votes in reserve when the House passed the health care bill last November. That is, there were some Democrats who really wanted to vote against the bill but could have been arm-twisted to vote for it if it were absolutely necessary. Since Pelosi had the votes needed for passage, she let those lawmakers vote against the bill. Now, she could lean on them to change their vote.
That will surely happen — but the question is, will it happen at least eight times? No one knows. But Republicans expect the Speaker to pull out every stop, to make every deal, to go to any length to pass the bill. “They have so much riding on this, I think they’d do almost anything to pass it,” says a highly-placed House GOP source. “If it failed, Pelosi would have to acknowledge that they were wrong, and we’ve seen no indications that they believe that anything they’ve done on this health care bill is wrong.”
Look for Democrats to enter into intense negotiations in coming days. They might not move immediately — and they don’t have to, because the Senate bill has already been passed, giving the House the freedom to vote on it tomorrow, next week, or six months from now. But it’s likely that the President’s Day recess, scheduled for the week of February 15, will emerge as a self-imposed deadline for a deal. “Their natural break is President’s Day,” says the GOP source. “If you go home for a week and you haven’t finished this, it gets even harder.”
