Vice President Joe Biden had some harsh words for the abuse of the filibuster in the Senate this weekend. “As long as I have served … I’ve never seen, as my uncle once said, the Constitution stood on its head as they’ve done. This is the first time every single solitary decisions has required 60 [...]

If Martha Coakley loses the special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat, the big question in Washington is what would happen to health care. It is clear the White House is pushing for the House to pass the Senate bill as is. For the moment, at least, the preferred Plan B would be to try [...]

With a poll of likely voters showing Driehaus 17 points down to his Republican opponent, there appears to be a more important takeaway: the Democrats have 10 months before the 2010 election to stand up to the banks, insurance and pharmaceutical companies and show that they really can be the party of reform. If he wants to save his seat, Driehaus should get in front of that parade and insist that the mandate and penalties come out of the bill — something 70% of the people in his district think is “unfair.” Because that is something that progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans agree on.

Finally, all it takes is the possibility of losing a Senate seat in Massachusetts plus tanking poll numbers for House Democrats for Congressional leaders to admit they really only need a simple majority in the Senate to pass health care reform. “Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for [...]

Obama is pushing to shorten the exclusivity period of biologics by two years. PhRMA is threatening to oppose reform if they do. Democrats launch a major PR push to assure everyone the health care bill is a done deal. Republicans will not need to run on repeal the whole bill. They will probably just attack [...]

The House health care bill’s single national exchange with federal regulatory enforcement mechanisms is clearly superior to the Senate’s idea of small, state-based exchanges with enforcement by state insurance commissioners. Under the House bill, if states think that they can do a better job than the national exchange, they have the right to opt out [...]

Dave Weigel writes: Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) announced his retirement today, mixed–but mostly dire–news for Democrats, who were hopeful that he could hold on and defeat his likely, scandal-tainted GOP opponent Tim Griffin. One of the possible reasons for the retirement? A poll conducted by SurveyUSA, paid for by the progressive blog Firedoglake, which tested [...]

President Obama wants to have a fight with the Republican who will run on repealing the whole health care bill. While I’m sure some Republicans in the deep red districts will run on that platform, I doubt the bulk of the Republican party will. I don’t think Obama will get the fight he claims to [...]

I’ve heard some chatter that the reason the House wants to delay passage of a health care bill is to get past many of the primary filing deadlines out of fear that a vote for these provisions will be unpopular and trigger enthusiasm for primary challenges. I didn’t put much stock in it at the time, but looking at these figures it may well be true.