COMMENT:  As the old song goes, "And the days dwindle down to a precious few...". Just a few days remain for everyone to make their voices heard in no uncertain terms.

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1. President Launches Last Push on Health-Care Overhaul

The president vowed to rally Americans and wavering lawmakers alike. White House aides said a pair of trips next week will be followed by a stream of public and private lobbying. The White House wants final votes by month's end.

President Obama outlines his three-part proposal for health care reform in an address at the White House. Courtesy Fox News. 

"At stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem," Mr. Obama told a crowd of white-coated doctors and nurses in the East Room, where a year ago he started the drive for the legislation.

With polls showing that the legislation is unpopular and congressional Democrats bracing for big losses in this fall's elections, the president urged them to ignore the politics. "I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it's right," he said. "Let's get it done."

Democrats and the White House are balancing high risks and rewards. Passing the health overhaul would fulfill a decades-old Democratic dream, bringing insurance to some 30 million Americans, and represent the greatest expansion of coverage since Medicare was created in 1965. But if the public judges the overhaul harshly, it is likely to cost some Democrats their seats, and the party's majority in the House could be at risk.

The White House argues that, despite the negative poll numbers, Americans will like the measure if it becomes law, since the focus then could shift from the legislative process to the measure's impact. Polling does find stronger support for the bill's individual provisions than for the package as a whole.

Mr. Obama Wednesday also highlighted a handful of Republican ideas used in the legislation. Republicans dismissed the gesture as insufficient.

"You can't add a couple of Republican sprinkles on the top of a 2,700-page bill and claim that it's bipartisan," said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio).

Rejecting Republican calls to start again, the president said that given the "honest and substantial differences between the parties," there was no point. "Everything there is to say about health care has been said," he said to laughter, "and just about everybody has said it."

For the first time, the president explicitly called on Congress to use a procedural technique that will let the Senate give its final approval with a simple majority vote. He didn't use the word for that technique—"reconciliation"—but characterized the process as a way of calling a simple "up or down vote" that has been used for big bills before.

Republicans say the reconciliation process was never intended for such major legislation. "History is clear: Big legislation always requires big majorities," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the floor Wednesday.

Democrats need to approve the changes in the Senate through reconciliation because they no longer have 60 Senate votes necessary to end a standard debate, due to the loss last month of the Massachusetts seat long held by the late Edward Kennedy. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs downplayed the significance of the reconciliation measure, calling it a set of "technical corrections" to the original Senate measure. The reconciliation version contains some significant differences from the Senate bill, including taxes on the wealthy and lower levies on high-value health-insurance plans.

Under the Democratic plan, the process would work like this: First, the House would vote on the bill that the Senate approved in late December. House leaders hope to pass both that Senate bill, and then the reconciliation package, by March 17. After that, the Senate would need to pass the reconciliation bill. By month's end, Democrats hope, the measure would go to the president to be signed into law.

The final push by Mr. Obama amounts to a critical test of his powers of persuasion. Democrats could face a tough decision, balancing the risk of passing potentially unpopular legislation against the risk of inaction and the stigma of having labored for more than a year to produce nothing. Democratic leaders say lawmakers who already voted yes once will be attacked no matter what, but will be in better shape politically if they have something to show for it.

White House aides vowed the president would use all tactics at his disposal to rally support. That includes speeches around the country, starting with a trip to Philadelphia on Monday, media interviews and direct communication with supporters. Read more here.

3. Hatch: Biden Will ‘Go Down in History as a Real Dolt’ If He Over-Rules Senate Parliamentarian and Lets The Dems Pass Health Care Without 60 Votes
Thursday, March 04, 2010
By Christopher Neefus

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) (Congressional photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said that Vice President Joe Biden would “go down in history as a real dolt” if he used his power as president of the Senate to overrule the Senate parliamentarian on the legitimacy of procedural tactics that could allow the Democrats to enact their health-care reform bill without getting the normally required 60 votes in the Senate.
 
Because the Democrat caucus in the Senate no longer has 60 members with which to end debate on a bill (and prevent a Republican filibuster), it is being reported that the Democrats may attempt to pass changes to their original health care bill with just 51 votes through a process called reconciliation.
 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

In the entire health care debate, among all the competing lawmakers, politicians, experts and pundits, there's just one person who has seen things from both sides of the political aisle. That is Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, who was elected as a Democrat in 2008 and was part of the House Democratic caucus until last Dec. 22, when he switched sides to become a Republican. (Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter doesn't count, because he switched parties in April 2009, before the current health care debate got underway.)

Given Griffith's unique perspective -- he is also a doctor, with 30 years' experience as an oncologist -- perhaps he has some insight into why the White House and his former Democratic allies in Congress continue to press forward on a national health care bill despite widespread public opposition.

It's gotten personal, Griffith says. "You have personalities who have bet the farm, bet their reputations, on shoving a health care bill through the Congress. It's no longer about health care reform. It's all about ego now. The president's ego. Nancy Pelosi's ego. This is about personalities, saving face, and it has very little to do with what's good for the American people."

Conflicts driven by personal feelings can lead to self-destructive outcomes. Ask Griffith whether Speaker Pelosi, his old leader, would accept losing Democratic control of the House as the price for passing the health care bill, and he answers quickly. "Oh yeah. This is a trophy for the speaker, it's a trophy for several committee chairs, and it's a trophy for the president." It does not seem to matter that if Democrats lose the House, the speaker will no longer be speaker, the chairmen will no longer be chairmen, and the president will be significantly weakened.

As Griffith sees his former colleagues, Democratic leaders have become so consumed with the idea of achieving the historical goal of a national health care system that they are able to explain away the scores of opinion polls over the last six months that show people solidly opposed to the Democratic proposal.

The polls are wrong, they say. Or the polls are contradictory. Or the polls actually show that people love the health care plan. And even if the polls are right, and people hate the plan, real leaders don't govern by following the polls. So just pass the bill.

That's easy for Democrats like Pelosi, who occupy safe seats. Not so for dozens of moderate House Democrats whose votes are required for passage, but who face likely defeat for it. "I don't think there are that many moderate or conservative Democrats who want to be sacrificial representatives," says Griffith. Read more here.