Counting House Votes on Healthcare Reform

By Richard Baehr

Where does the healthcare reform bill stand in the House, as of today? Efforts to count votes vary, and must be based on guesswork.

Jay Cost of Real Clear Politics lists too few (I think) who are vulnerable to go from no to yes (6), and too many in the camp who might go from yes to no (25).

David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner has too many (I think) in the possible no to yes camp (18).

My sense is that there may be 60-70 Democrats who want to vote no (39 did last time, one of whom has since become a Republican). If it looks like the bill will go down, they will all gladly vote no, and the bill will go down by a big margin, a real image problem for Obama and Pelosi. If the bill passes, it will be very close, and painful for those last few Democrats to walk the plank (on their longevity in the House) and say yes.

At the moment, the betting line is that the bill will pass (over 60% likelihood), and has risen the last few days. That is not a good sign, and is a bit counter-intuitive, since most news stories the last few days have suggested growing difficulty to get the bill passed. The Administration does not have the 216 votes yet, and has not received any final scoring from CBO for the spending and revenue numbers in the reconciliation package. If the spending number is much higher than the original Senate bill (just under $900 billion for first ten years), or the supposed surplus disappears, that will add to the difficulty in getting blue dog votes.