Yes, it can.
Obamacare is in trouble in the House. Passage of whatever compromise health care bill is agreed on by White House, Senate, and House negotiators had been taken for granted in the House – until now.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finds herself in a precarious position. She cannot afford to lose a single Democratic defector. She’s already missing two of the 220 votes for Obamacare in November. Democrat Robert Wexler resigned two weeks ago and Anh (Joseph) Cao, the lone Republican to vote for Obamacare, is expected by Republican leaders to vote no this time.
That leaves Pelosi with 218 votes. If she loses one more vote, the compromise bill could fail. “I believe there is an opportunity to prevent this bill from becoming law,” House Republican whip Eric Cantor said in a memo last week.
Republicans have a target-rich environment of 39 Democrats who voted in favor of Obamacare last year as possible defectors. Republicans will try to persuade as many of them as possible to switch, forcing Pelosi to find new Obamacare backers or see the health care bill die.
The task of persuading potential switchers may not be all that difficult. Obamacare, according to every national survey, is deeply unpopular. Only roughly one-third of Americans favor it. And if Republican Scott Brown wins the special election in Massachusetts next week to succeed the late Teddy Kennedy in the Senate, that will make Democrats all the more leery of bucking public opinion and voting for Obamacare. Brown has made opposition to Obamacare the centerpiece of his campaign.
The 39 possible switchers include 11 pro-life Democrats who voted for Obamacare after a tough anti-abortion amendment was added. The compromise with the Senate bill isn’t likely to have as strong a provision barring the use of public funds to pay for abortions. Thus some of the pro-lifers could defect.
Then there are those in districts with large numbers of seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage, a program which Obamacare would kill except in Florida and a few other states. The program is enormously popular with seniors.
And more than two dozen Democrats are from states with deep budget shortfalls. ObamaCare would only add to their fiscal problem by requiring states – except Nebraska – to spend more money on Medicaid. This requirement has prompted Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California to drop his support for the bill and call for its defeat. In November, 39 Democrats voted against ObamaCare and no doubt a number of them were on Pelosi’s “walk list” – that is, she gave them permission to vote no. Could she lure some of them to switch back? Not easily, since ObamaCare has become more unpopular since the initial vote and she’d be asking them to make a politically risky vote.
Obamacare isn’t a done deal yet.
SOURCE: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/could-house-kill-obamacare
Well, we have placed a lot of hope in Scott Brown. All eyes will be upon him for some time…A lot hangs on him. He, right now, is an extremely important member of our congress. Or will be, rather, when he gets sworn in.
Im ok with starting all over on the healthcare bill and i believe it should be aired on c-span every step of the way,That would force the reps and those few dems that are against healthcare reform to keep honest and work with those for healthcare reform in a way that is available for Americans to see and understand and the reps would stop their lying tv ads against healthcare reform.imo thats the best way to go with it at this point.
The government needs to start doing the proper thing. An outstanding start can be getting their noses from the health care trade. They could not really deal with the work load which they have now. Precisely how are they likely to make this any more effective?
Republicans want want failure, they want things like the insurance companies to continue to rake in billions and to keep the unwealthy at a disadvantage. The infrastructures portion was what we needed to get us going in advancing our country to come into the present but the old conservatives who want to go back to the “simpler times” (ie. slavery, and racial discrimination via lower education). Our country and everyday people need help due to bad financial policy and they are just not getting it. Who is getting it? Big business. God bless America.
What will it take for members of Congress & the President to finally realize that the majority of Americans do Not want this crappy HC bill that they are trying to jam through? What is wrong with starting over & coming up with something that all sides can agree on? Why won’t they let us see the bill instead of telling us that we will get to see it after it passes? I want to see a vote. I want to see which members of Congress vote yes for something that the majority of the American people do NOT want. I want to know who thumbs their noses at the American people, who sold out for a backroom deal or should I say sold their souls to the devil. If this thing passes it will be the most crooked thing that I have ever witness the government doing & the most devastating thing they have ever done to the American people when they do NOT want their crappy toxic HC bill.
Wordings of each political body the Senate & the House version used as adoption measures must use the same language in the Bill and if that one aspect is not abiding to then there is a reason to declare it improperly enacted into Law and Republicans can then force the Health Care Bill to be removed using the U.S. Code when Republicans regain some equal control in Congress. Hurray for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, he’s our man that understands why there is a economic problem that will not be resolved by Health Care.
Our major issue in this country is our two political parties. Our forefathers knew that a two party system would be our downfall and took steps to try to stop this type of politics, and thus anyone who seriously thinks that politics isn’t corrupt or slaves to Corporate America hasn’t not been paying attention. George Jr. will go down in History as one of the worst administrations in history and I could go on for hours showing why, but my point is that the Obama administration has offered nothing different (besides health reform, granted) and has in fact continued nearly every single Bush program. Obama has almost the same political donors and thus has the same pressures as Bush did. Health reform will turn out to be the most expensive and destructive waste of tax payer money ever. I just wish I could offer a better alternative for other frustrated people, but I can’t and those that think that the tea partiers are the future, remember that Sarah Palin is an important figure to them.