Roundup: Enjoy Your Present Now, Stupak Could Grinch You

Merry Christmas: health care reform has passed. Love it, hate it, or indifferent to it, there is one thing we can all agree on - it is a monumental piece of legislation. Of course, the question remains, "what now?" TPM answers.

According to Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Senate health care principals (including himself) and their counterparts in the House will begin working with Democratic leaders and White House officials next week to marry the two chambers' bills. During that process, they'll have to be mindful of just how fragile the coalition in the Senate is, and will likely make no dramatic changes to the legislation that passed this morning.

That means the House will face a vote on a final bill that's likely to be less progressive in a number of ways than the package they passed in November. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already fielding defection threats from a number of high-profile progressives in her caucus. And given that the first bill passed by an extremely slim margin, for almost every "yes" in her caucus who becomes a "no," she'll have to find a "no" vote, and turn it into a "yes."

CNN goes into the process with a little more detail, including the fact that Congressman Bart Stupak could still be a Grinch and derail the final passage if he chooses:

Another sticking point is coverage for abortion. A late compromise in the House led to the adoption of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which bans most abortion coverage from the public option. It would also prohibit abortion coverage in private policies available in the exchange to people receiving federal subsidies.

A similar amendment introduced by Sen. Ben Nelson failed in the Senate. To get his vote, a compromise was reached that allows states to choose whether to ban abortion coverage in health plans offered in the insurance exchanges. Individuals purchasing plans through the exchanges would have to pay for abortion coverage out of their own money.

As lawmakers work to merge the bills, there will be no other option other than to pick the Nelson compromise, [Norm] Ornstein said.

The real question is whether or not Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak "tries to lead an insurgent group of pro-life Democrats away from the bill as a result of a compromise," he added.

And speaking of Grinches, the Catholic Bishops are still cranky this Christmas Eve.

"Apparently a Senate bill that unleashes unprecedented funding for abortions is the Senate's idea of a Christmas gift," said Fr. Pavone.  "Given that taxpayers oppose public funding of abortion by a three-to-one margin, perhaps next November Senators will learn just how offensive their gift is.  Beginning immediately, Priests for Life is mobilizing voters to put the right to life first in every election."

Sen. Ben Nelson appears to have found some coal in his stocking, as well.  After taking heat from both sides of the abortion debate, he had this to say on Fox News:

I think my colleagues know that we introduced legislation that is comparable to the Stupak legislation in the house dealing with barring the use of federal funds for elective abortions. We introduced it over here. it was bipartisan. it was Hatch -- it was Nelson Hatch Casey, and it didn't pass. So I began the process of trying to find other solutions that I thought equally walled off the use of federal funds and made it clear that no federal funds would be used. Now, apparently i didn't say "mother may I" in the process of writing that language because others took issue with it, even though they cannot constructively point out how it doesn't prohibit the use of federal funds or wall off those funds or keep them totally segregated. They just didn't like the language. well, you know, if in the conference the stupak-nelson-hatch-casey language passes, i'll be happy, and so will congressman stupak and so would, i would imagine, those who signed on to that legislation. you know, it's unfortunate, though, to continue to distort and misrepresent what happens here in the body of the senate. 

So where is the holiday cheer over this bill? Well, Independent Women's Forum has a little, although it's fairly lukewarm.

It's the season of hope, and of course we can still hope that Members come to their sense over the holidays and return to scrap the current frighteningly destructive proposals and start anew with legislation that would actually make the health care market place more competitive and help control health care costs. And now, I'll get back to baking cookies for Santa Claus...

And on that note, a happy holidays to one and all.  I'll be back to roundup with you again in 2010!