The Week: Health care prospects in balance, but politics are set

By Rick Klein: The politics isn’t waiting on the policy. This is the week that health care either does or doesn’t get done. But the law of this land is that the choices for 2010 have already been made. And those trying to decide whether it’s better for your party (either party) for health care to pass or for health care to fail — you won’t have that choice much longer. The fact that this is another health care week — as opposed to a financial-regulatory reform week, or an education week, or an immigration week, or a jobs week — tells you what you need to know about health care’s impact on the legislative landscape. There can and will be no other issue commanding the requisite political attention until or unless health care is dispatched with. And if that doesn’t happen this week… Get ready for the final, final press: “I believe it is going to happen this week,” senior White House adviser David Axelrod told ABC’s Jake Tapper, on “This Week” Sunday. Not the Monday bullet points the White House wanted — and a dangerous storyline if it becomes again about process: “President Barack Obama appears ready to reverse his position and allow unpopular deal-sweetening measures in the hopes of finding Democratic support for legislation whose future will be decided in coming days,” the AP’s Ben Feller reports. “Increasingly eager to finish work on his top domestic priority, Obama was set to head to northeast Ohio on Monday with a final sales pitch for health care legislation that the top Democratic vote-counter in the House said lacked support to pass.” President Obama speaks in Ohio at 1:05 pm ET Monday, while the House Budget Committee whirls into action at 3 pm ET — assuming the Congressional Budget Office numbers on the reconciliation package are out in time. Your timeline, if everything goes right (yes, we know): “House Democrats expect to receive a final cost estimate by Monday afternoon, when the House Budget Committee is scheduled to vote on the reconciliation package. It would then go to the House Rules Committee, where Chairman Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) could package it with the $875 billion measure the Senate passed on Christmas Eve,” Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post. “The full House is expected to vote on both measures by week’s end, with the climactic moment coming as soon as Thursday but, more likely, Friday or Saturday.” “Because their whip efforts have been so sensitive, leaders wouldn’t say it outright last week, but they essentially have a deal on what to include in the crucial health care reconciliation bill,” Roll Call’s Emily Pierce writes. “The chief uncertainties are whether they can get 216 House Members and 51 Senators to vote for it and whether the measure will remain intact during an expected onslaught of amendments and points of order from Senate Republicans.” ABC’s Jon Karl, on the “no” votes that need to become “yes” votes: “We have called all 37 of those Democrats, and have yet to find a single one willing to say definitively they will vote yes, although at least a few are saying they’re willing to consider it,” Karl reported on “Good Morning America” Monday. “After all the presidential speeches and high-level negotiations, the fate of President Obama’s health care legislation now rests with a handful of House Democrats whose names few will recognize outside their districts,” USA Today’s John Fritze reports. Going into the defining vote of a Congress, and a presidency: “After nearly a year of haggling, most of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 252 Democratic colleagues still have concerns about passing the Senate bill, even with some fixes. Their objections range from the ideological to the procedural, and the shape of the final package hinges on an obscure, unelected official — Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin,” Politico’s Patrick O’Connor reports. But first, Strongsville, Ohio — Cleveland area, but not Obama territory: “President Barack Obama can expect to be greeted with a mixture of cheers and jeers when he rolls into town tomorrow,” Brian Byrne writes in the Sun Star Courier. “While a large crowd anxiously waited in line Sunday afternoon at the Walter F. Ehrnfelt Recreation and Senior Center for tickets to attend Obama’s speech there at 1 p.m. on Monday, a group of conservative-minded residents gathered to prepare to rally against the president’s policies.” Why Ohio? “It’s a state he picked so that he could appear alongside a local woman, Natoma Canfield, whose struggles with insurance premiums President Obama has been talking about,” ABC’s Jake Tapper reported on “Good Morning America” Monday. “But since the president started talking about her story, Canfield’s story has become even more tragic…. She was just diagnosed with leukemia.” Vice President Joe Biden gets into the Ohio act, too: “When it comes to President Barack Obama’s health care reform bill, U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus’ vote has become a hot ticket. With a vote on the health care bill likely this month, the West Price Hill Democrat will be the beneficiary of a fundraising visit by Vice President Joe Biden on Monday,” the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Malia Rulon reports. Says Driehaus, D-Ohio: “I appreciate the vice president coming in. But it has no bearing whatsoever on my health care vote. … I will not bend on the principle of federal funding on abortion.” Attention fence-sitters: “The yearlong legislative fight over health care is drawing to a frenzied close as a multimillion-dollar wave of advertising that rivals the ferocity of a presidential campaign takes aim at about 40 House Democrats whose votes will help determine the fate of President Obama’s top domestic priority,” Jeff Zeleny writes in The New York Times. “Not only are these swing Democrats being pummeled in the new spate of advertising — which could total $30 million before week’s end — but extensive efforts are under way in Congressional districts, where groups on both sides of the issue are using tactics similar to get-out-the-vote drives to urge constituents to contact their lawmakers.” What’s this worth? “The White House has signaled to lawmakers that assistance for midterm elections — for example, presidential visits and fund-raisers — will be prioritized for those who support the bill,” Zeleny continues. “Organizing for America, the network of volunteers that developed from the Obama campaign, is also developing an extensive plan to help explain the health care bill to voters in the event that it passes.” Process this: Former judge Michael W. McConnell, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “Enter the Slaughter solution. It may be clever, but it is not constitutional. To become law —     hence eligible for amendment via reconciliation — the Senate health-care bill must actually be signed into law. The Constitution speaks directly to how that is done. According to Article I, Section 7, in order for a ‘Bill’ to ‘become a Law,’ it ‘shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate’ and be ‘presented to the President of the United States’ for signature or veto. Unless a bill actually has ‘passed’ both Houses, it cannot be presented to the president and cannot become a law.”  Flashback to Friday, Rep. David Dreier, ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee: “They can do it if they are able to get 216 votes,” he said on ABC’s “Top Line,” “but I will tell you something: The American people get it. The one thing that I’ve found is that they’ve learned the process is substance.” If you even care to do your own whip counts at this point: “According to The Hill’s tracking of member positions, 35 Democrats say they are going to vote no or are likely to vote no. Another 73 are publicly undecided,” The Hill’s Molly K. Hooper and Bob Cusack report. “Of course, it is impossible to read the minds of legislators, and it is highly probable that some undecided Democrats have decided. For tactical and other reasons, they are deciding to keep their votes to themselves — and perhaps Democratic leaders.”  New from the DCCC: SpeakerPelosi.com. “Our Republican opponents and their special interest allies are spending millions on ad campaigns based on misinformation, distortion and fear. We cannot let them stand in the way of these critical reforms,” the e-mail out Monday reads. “When Republicans attack, we must knock down their smears and falsehoods with the truth – with stories from real, hardworking Americans who have been forced to put their dreams on hold because of our country’s broken health care system – and that’s why I need to hear from you.” New from MoveOn.org — an e-mail going out to members Monday takes on moderate Democrats: “Health care reform is in serious danger in the House of Representatives: with a handful of conservative Democrats wavering, we don’t yet have the votes to pass the final bill. So we’re asking every MoveOn member: will you pledge to support progressive primary challengers to House Democrats who side with Republicans to kill health care reform?” While you’re watching the House… “Senate Republicans are threatening to put up hundreds of amendments — one of the few weapons in their limited arsenal — to force Democrats to take difficult votes on politically sensitive subjects,” the Washington Times’ Jennifer Haberkorn reports. “Amendments don’t have to be relevant to the subject matter under the controversial tactic Democrats are using to avoid a filibuster, so Republicans can force Democrats to take tough votes on any number of matters, such as closing the detention facility for terrorism suspects at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” Conceiving of the inconceivable: “If the President fails to win the upcoming series of congressional votes designed to get health care legislation to his desk, it will be a calamitous failure for his presidency and for him personally, dwarfing the potholes he has hit during his first bumpy year in office,” Time’s Mark Halperin writes. “Should the effort collapse, regaining political traction would be nigh impossible any time soon, if ever. And a potential comeback would be in further jeopardy because Obama is so unaccustomed to losing.” All you really need to know about the broader landscape: “Moderate House Democrats facing potentially difficult reelections this fall have a message for President Barack Obama: Don’t call us; we’ll call you,” Politico’s Jonathan Martin writes. “Interviews with nearly a dozen congressional Democrats on the ballot this year reveal a decided lack of enthusiasm for having Obama come to their districts to campaign for them — the most basic gauge of a president’s popularity.” “Few pieces of the mosaic that is the Democratic Party seem happy,” the AP’s Liz Sidoti writes. “Labor and gays are restless. Blacks and Hispanics are grumbling. Liberals and moderates are battling. Even some in Hollywood are disappointed. Obama must bring together — and fire up — the many Democratic coalitions if he hopes to minimize expected losses for his party this fall in his first midterm elections. The risk if he doesn’t is that Democrats could become so disaffected that they stay home in November.” Where the agenda goes from here: “Despite holding high-profile meetings last week on energy and immigration reform, President Obama will focus the next few months on two issues that could help his party in November: stronger financial regulations and ways to mitigate a Supreme Court ruling that allows direct corporate spending on behalf of candidates,” The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson writes.  “Such an agenda will give the rest of the legislative calendar, compressed by the midterm election season, a distinctly political cast. It will also push energy and immigration reform, two of Obama’s most far-reaching campaign pledges, into the next Congress, which is likely to be more influenced by the Republican opposition,” Wilson continues. “His post-health-care agenda, described by senior administration officials publicly and privately last week, is far more attuned to the politics of an election year during which his party will be fighting to protect majorities in the House and Senate.” Time for regulatory reform, at last, with Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., moving without Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.: “The senator trying to rewrite the nation’s financial industry rules is dropping plans to create a stand-alone consumer financial protection agency and give a single regulator the power to oversee all banks, according to people familiar with the evolving proposal,” the AP’s Jim Kuhnhenn reports. “Backing away from the proposal he offered four months ago, the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee is now incorporating GOP ideas, and yet not one Republican senator is coming along so far.” “The shift follows a push from the Obama administration, which sees a political advantage in pushing legislation taking aim at Wall Street,” The Wall Street Journal’s Damian Paletta writes. “Mr. Dodd’s bill would allow the Fed to examine any bank-holding company with more than $50 billion in assets, and large financial companies that aren’t banks could be lassoed into the Fed’s supervisory orbit. This came after Treasury officials pushed Mr. Dodd to bring more companies under the Fed’s purview.” Bloomberg’s Alison Vekshin: “The plan Dodd will release today may seek to create a consumer division at the Federal Reserve with power to write rules that could be overturned by a two-thirds vote of a planned systemic-risk council, according to two Senate aides with knowledge of the plan. The unit would have its own budget, a director appointed by the president and power to crack down on banks with assets exceeding $10 billion, said one of the aides.” John Harwood, in The New York Times: “Mr. Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor, pointed to Democrats’ pursuit of health reform under special budget rules preventing a Republican filibuster, insisting that the effort poisoned the atmosphere when ‘we were so close’ to success. Mr. Dodd saw a simpler cause. ‘It’s not the rules of the place,’ he declared. ‘It’s the chemistry of the place.’ ” Education time, too: “President Obama said he would send to Congress on Monday a blueprint for overhauling the nation’s education program and the No Child Left Behind project to improve schools, support teachers and set standards that would give high school graduates ‘the best chance to succeed in a changing world,’ ” Richard A. Serrano reports in the Los Angeles Times. “We have to educate our way to a better economy,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told George Stephanopoulos on “GMA” Monday. “We have to have a high bar — college- and career-ready standards for every single child…. We’re looking to make some dramatic changes here.” “President Barack Obama’s brewing fight with teachers unions over his plans to overhaul education legislation could end up being a political trifecta for liberal Democrats, Republicans and a president eager to demonstrate he can work across party lines,” Politico’s Nia-Malika Henderson writes. “As for Obama, a rewrite of No Child Left Behind on his desk would let him claim a bipartisan legislative win, something that has so far eluded his administration on other domestic issues like health care and climate change legislation.” Just maybe consuming whatever other oxygen was left… Justice John Paul Stevens tells The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin that he’ll make a decision about retirement by April: “When I decided to just hire one clerk, three of my four clerks last year said they’d work for me next year if I wanted them to,” Stevens says. “So I have my options still. And then I’ll have to decide soon.” Plus: “You can say I will retire within the next three years. I’m sure of that.” Rielle Hunter speaks: “You know, it was just this, this magnetic force field like I had never experienced,” Hunter says of meeting John Edwards, to GQ’s Lisa DePaulo, as reported by The Washington Post’s “Reliable Source.” Umm — really? “Andrew [Young] would put $5,000 a month into my bank account. One month it was $6,000. He told me it was on the up-and-up and it was a gift. I had no idea where it was coming from.” From the folks who brought you “Demon Sheep”…. Carly Fiorina’s other rival, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is a giant blimp floating over the landscape. “Her elitist self-image grew so that it overwhelmed the Capitol and drifted west,” the voice-over (actor Robert Davi, again) says, per Politico’s Ben Smith.
The Kicker: “I guess everybody remembered I still have subpoena powers.” — Attorney General Martha Coakley, D-Mass., thanking organizers for the invitation to the annual St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast in South Boston.  ”Scientists are studying Sarah Palin’s travel between Alaska and Florida carefully. They hope to learn more about the flight patterns of that elusive migratory species, the wild Alaskan dingbat.” — Campaign e-mail from Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla.

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