LA Philanthropy Watch

“If we don’t pass the bill, how do we explain that to the American people?”  asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “We as Democrats with two Houses and the White House could not make this historic decision to go forward?”

Ht: Greg Sargent who links to two health care policy wonks, Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn, on the esoteric “deem and pass” legislative strategy the Speaker intends to follow.  (This is really inside baseball: even more esoteric than the Senate’s filibuster rules.)

Update: Marc Ambinder takes a closer look at the “deeming” strategy this morning at the Atlantic; he says it is a venerable procedure, consistent with the rules of the House and (contrary to the editorial writers of the Wall St. Journal) with the Constitution.

(Image of Nancy Pelosi at the recent bipartisan health care summit making a fist to make a point.  She should keep that fist clenched until she has rounded up enough Democrats to pass the bill – or deem the bill passed.)

The headline and subhead (in a story by Janet Hook and Noam N. Levey) in this morning’s print edition of the Los Angeles Times: “It’s now up to Obama, Pelosi: The healthcare overhaul may rest on his leadership and her power of persuasion.”  That sounds right.

As the President has begun to campaign on behalf of health care reform, and the legislation is under threat from both the left and right flanks of Congressional Democrats, a number of progressive commentators have begun to rally ’round the reform flag.

Last Friday at TPM Café Theda Skocpol (Harvard sociologist and political scientist, whose scholarly focus has included the nonprofit and voluntary sector) called on Democrats of all stripes to get on board with health care reform while the window of opportunity to pass it is still open.

“At the risk of irritating people on the left, this is NOT the moment for ‘progressives’ to demand a public option. Nor is it the moment for either pro-choice feminists or pro-life Democrats to derail reform.”

I emphatically agree with her that there is a critical need now to turn attention to getting the job done (and that her abrasive tone will irritate).

At Mother Jones Kevin Drum links to Dr. Skocpol and suggests, “The current bill isn’t perfect, but the combination of community rating at the national level with an individual mandate is likely to be the beginning of the end for private health insurance as we know it.”

At The New Republic Jonathan Chait thinks we’re suffering from myopia about the historical nature of this legislation. He objects to Jane Hamsher on the left, John McCain on the right, and the editorial board of the Washington Post in the middle. “It’s natural to focus on improving a piece of legislation whose details remain in flux. The problem comes when the desire to improve becomes the sole focus for evaluating it. Nearly any of the great political advances in American history, viewed from ground level, looked like a pastiche of grubby compromises and half measures. At some point the imperative is to take the broader view.”  [Editor's note: typo corrected.]

At Think Progress Matt Yglesias notes that (FireDogLake aside) the left is solidly on board with reform: MoveOn.org, SEIU, AFSME, the NAACP, LLUAC, and the liberal columnists at both the New York Times and Washington Post have all endorsed passage of the legislation.

As President Obama campaigns – with an eye on wavering Members of Congress, can Speaker Pelosi round up the votes in the House?  We’ll know soon.

(Image from February rally for health care reform in front of Los Angeles offices of Anthem Blue Cross.)

In his State of the Union address, Barack Obama said, “To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.”

Nancy Pelosi isn’t running for the hills.  At the Speaker’s weekly briefing yesterday, she said this about passing health care reform: “As I said to some friends yesterday in the press, you go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll poll vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in. But we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security – and for the important role it will play in reducing the deficit.”

More power to her.

Hat tip: Greg Sargent.  This video clip is from the Wonk Room.  The complete video of the Speaker’s briefing is at C-Span (with the brief quoted text from above at 16:01 – 16:24).