Does Pelosi have the votes for health care bill?

Byron York:

Now that the White House and Democrats are making a last push to pass their so-far-unpassable national health care bills, the only thing that matters is whether they can get 217 votes for victory in the House and 50 votes (plus the vice-president's tie-breaker) for reconciliation in the Senate. Good policy doesn't matter. Bad policy doesn't matter. All that matters is votes.

The White House and Democrats have lost sight of the essential insanity of the process -- desperately searching for corners to cut so they can pass an enormous re-ordering of the American economy that Americans don't want -- because all they can think about now is passing something. It could be anything, as long as it is "comprehensive."

So where are the votes? Start in the House. House Democrats have to do two things. First, they have to pass the health care bill that Senate Democrats passed on December 24 -- Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase and all. They could stop there and send the bill to the president's desk, but that, of course, is not going to happen. So they then have to pass a set of agreed-upon "fixes" to the Senate bill that the Senate would then pass by using the reconciliation process. (The fixes will start in the House; reconciliation bills have to originate in the House because all revenue measures have to originate in the House.)

The original House health care bill passed last November by a 220 to 215 margin. But supporters have lost four votes since then. Democrat Rep. Robert Wexler has left the House, and Rep. Neil Abercrombie is expected to leave this week. Rep. John Murtha died, and Republican Rep. Joseph Cao, the only GOP lawmaker to vote for the bill, now says he will vote against the measure. That leaves Democrats with 216 votes, one short of the 217 it will take to pass. (That number is one less than the usual 218 because of the vacancies in the House.)

In addition, it's thought that some number of Democrats who voted for the original bill will likely vote against the Senate version because it lacks the House bill's language on the subject of abortion (the president's proposed compromise doesn't help on that subject, either). Republicans estimate there may be 11 such Democrats. If there are, that takes the number down to 205, which means Speaker Nancy Pelosi will need to find a dozen "yes" votes to make up the difference. It is widely thought that she had some possible yes votes in reserve last November, to be used if they were absolutely essential to passage. Are there 12? No one knows.

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There is more.

It really depends on how suicidal Democrats are.

Chet Edwards voted no last time, but I think that was mainly to protect his reelection effort. He was pretty squirrely in dealing with the Tea Party people and those Town Hall meetings folks he mainly dodged as long as he could. He might be a vote she could get. There may be others like him. I have not seen any comment from him on the subject recently. If he were really opposed to the bill and the idea, I think he would have said something by now.

How many Democrats are willing to make a career decision with their vote? If they thought voters were angry when they elected Scott Brown, Democrats have not seen the real anger that will rise up against them if they push this travesty through Congress and saddle us with another trillion dollar program that will suck money out of a week economy to pay for only some of it.