Health Care: We Are Going To Win

Maybe it's the result of a happy early childhood, lucky brain chemistry, or seeing Nancy Pelosi win every consequential fight she's picked since late 2004, but I'm always one to tell people that things are a lot less dire than they look. So: things are a lot less dire than they look.

Currently, House progressives are saying no to passing the Senate bill. But how many thousand times in the past year have we seen some group of Democrats announce implacable opposition, and eventually be bought off by concessions from the leadership? Usually these concessions involve a pound of flesh being cut out of House progressives, to the point that repeated compromises have left them with no internal organs. Now they're in position to make demands, and I don't blame them for confidently playing the ultimatum game to get back what they lost. Promise to give their liver and spleen back in budget reconciliation, or maybe both kidneys, and they'll announce support for the legislation. We've already got Barney Frank walking back freakout comments and Kent Conrad saying that budget reconciliation is available to make compromises work out. This can happen, and is moving towards happening.

People sign on, and then you've got momentum. News at 8: Health care reform back from the dead as Congresscritters declare support! All we need is for things to look happy enough for 218 votes to align in the House for one instant, and in that instant Pelosi is going to pound the bill through. Michael Jordan dunks on people, Cookie Monster eats cookies, and Nancy Pelosi makes stuff pass the House. That's what they do.

Things that the victorious endgame does not involve: (1) Compromise agreements from a Republican Party that has never shown an inclination to compromise and is emboldened in its obstructionism by Scott Brown's victory. (2) Brand-new legislative strategies that require lots of heavy lifting from disorganized panicked Democrats in an election year. (3) Breaking a GOP filibuster. (4) The bill dying and progressives defeating the combined centrist and conservative media in the spin war over why it died, leading to Medicare for All Humans and Ponies.

Really, this is all a lot simpler than it looks. You can help it happen by calling your Congresscritter and making sure (s)he's on board. Zip+4 in the top left gets you the digits. Go make history.

Update: So, this is not good. I really can't believe I'm reading this. [But now it's late in Singapore and I'm drunk, so I should get to bed if I can. Hoping this is all choreographed somehow, or I'm just misreading it. Back in Singamorning.]

Update2: Okay, maybe this is the right way to read what Pelosi is saying. If so, great! Now I need to eat something filling and go to bed. Utterly befuddled self-foolmaking drunkblogging will resume sometime, but not now.