Whipping the Vote

From the (Albany) Times-Union:

Rep. Scott Murphy, D-N.Y., on Friday declared he would vote for the administration’s $940 billion overhaul of the nation’s health care system, saying it would shift the balance of power from insurance companies to patients and does a better job of reining in medical costs.

In an interview with the Albany Times Union, Murphy said the final health care package is “much more fiscally conservative” than the broader House-passed bill he opposed last November and would do a better job of reducing the explosive growth in medical costs that “our families and small businesses are facing,” while still expanding insurance coverage to roughly 32 million people.

“This bill is fundamentally different than the bill we voted on last November,” Murphy said, adding that while the measure “is not perfect,” he feels “much better” about it.

Murphy’s decision ends days of intense speculation about how he would handle the issue, which is a signature piece of President Obama’s domestic agenda and is a top priority for congressional Democrats.

Markos Moulitsas, via Twitter, makes a point about counting votes:

All whip counts ignore [the] fact that all key votes will decide in the last 2 minutes depending on what the count needs to be[.]

Linked from TheCalifornian.com, via Jeffrey Lebowski at Twitter:

ProPublica has produced a side-by-side comparison of the health care reform bill currently before Congress, looking at the bill approved by the Senate in December and the House’s recommended changes.

Wanna see a screen shot from the House Rules Committee’s records, from the 108th Congress, showing the almost two dozen instances in which Republicans used deem-and-pass? Matthew Yglesias has it. “Demon Pass,” indeed.

Ezra Klein sees the smack-down of  the GOP’s attempt to make the use of deem-and-pass illegal as “very strong evidence” that health care reform is going to pass.

And when it does, it will be very much despite lies like this one about federal money being used to pay for abortions — lies which are uncritically “reported” by credulous press stenographers posing as journalists.

Oh, ye of little faith on CBO scores: go here.

Salon‘s Mike Madden lists 10 things you should know about the health care reform bill.

March 10 Kaiser poll on health care, via FiveThirtyEight.com on Twitter.

Matthew Yglesias wonders if Bart Stupak is going to make nasty comments about the National Catholic Reporter, too, now that they’ve come out for health care reform.

The National Catholic Reporter is joining American nuns and the Catholic Health Association in breaking with the Bishops and endorsing the health reform bill, offering the observation that “the bishops have to be clear that some of their talking points might lead honest observers to question their competence — or worse.”