Democrats disagree on whether they have an agreement

NY Times:

White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continued to say on Sunday that progress was being made on legislation to overhaul the health-care system, but fiscally conservative Democrats remained less optimistic while Republicans remained steadfast in their opposition to it.

Ms. Pelosi, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” declared: “When I take this bill to the floor, it will win. We will move forward, it will happen.”

But Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the chairman of the budget committee, said it was not possible or desirable to have a bill that carried only Democratic votes.

“Look, there are not the votes for Democrats to do this just on our side of the aisle,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“The only thing bipartisan about the measures so far is the opposition to them,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

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Pelosi must mean she will either modify the bill or provide funding for Democrat opponents so they can vote for it. That is how she got the catastrophic energy bill through and how she and Waxman plan to do the health care bill. It probably depends on the integrity and steadfastness of the Blue Dogs. If they crater this time they will be in serious political difficulty with voters who were told they were fiscal conservatives.

Meanwhile The Hill reports:

Following a blow from the Congressional Budget Office, Democratic leaders in Congress likely will make the case this week that the healthcare reform plan has multiple benefits and cost savings that cannot be scored by independent congressional accountants.

Democrats are going to seek to convince skeptics that the healthcare overhaul has other provisions, such as prevention and wellness measures, that will provide benefits and save money, a House leadership aide told The Hill on Sunday.

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This is what politicians call spin. When the facts become inconvenient you try to construct a different rationale for doing what you wanted to do anyway. It will probably only work for the true believers. The rest of us will see it for the politics of fraud it represents. They have lost a central tenant of their rationale for this bill. Do they really think we will forget their previous arguments for its passage?