Here is the chart.

Roman Catholic opposition to the health care overhaul package is crumbling, with some church officials and lawmakers concluding that their long-sought goal of health care overhaul trumps the desire to adopt the severest restrictions on abortion funding.

A coalition of 59,000 nuns released a letter yesterday calling on Congress to approve the overhaul, defying the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes the measure. The Catholic Health Association, which represents 1,200 Catholic hospitals, has endorsed the package, as have Catholics United and Catholic groups promoting social justice.

That split mirrors a division among some antiabortion US representatives. In preparing to cast perhaps one of the most important votes on a domestic issue in their careers, they are wrestling with questions that strike at the core of their beliefs and that threaten to embolden voters in November.

Ardently antiabortion Representative Dale Kildee, a Michigan Democrat who once studied in a Catholic seminary, said yesterday he will vote for the package despite language that some believe is not strict enough in ensuring that no federal funds are used for abortions.

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Many House Democrats strongly disliked the Senate’s proposed excise tax on high-cost, employer-sponsored insurance policies. In the Senate-passed bill, that provision would have raised $150 billion over 10 years. Mr. Obama and White House officials reached a deal with organized labor groups to delay the implementation and limit the impact of that tax. As a result, the excise tax will raise only $32 billion over 10 years, according to the budget office.

Of course, that meant coming up with another $118 billion elsewhere to plug the hole. Not a problem: the final legislation imposes a 3.8 percent tax on “unearned income” such as dividends and interest, or on regular income above $200,000 a year for individuals and $250,000 for couples.

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Read it all and follow the links as you are inclined.

Lingering fear of defections from the Democratic left — among those who believe the bill does not go far enough to expand access to healthcare — was allayed Wednesday when Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) became the first liberal opponent of the House bill approved last year to announce that he would support the more restrictive Senate legislation.

“If I can vote for this bill, there are not many others that shouldn’t be able to,” said Kucinich, a leader of the movement to provide universal healthcare by offering the Medicare program to all Americans.

Among social conservatives, the legislation won an important new endorsement from dozens of leaders of Catholic nuns, including a group that says it represents more than 90% of the 59,000 nuns in the United States. That contrasted with the staunch opposition of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which issued a statement Monday arguing that the bill would not adequately guard against using federal funds for abortion. The nuns disagreed, and so did a retired bishop.

And a senior antiabortion Democrat, Rep. Dale E. Kildee of Michigan, issued a statement Wednesday announcing that he would support the bill.

The political pressure intensified in the Capitol, as the House’s telephone switchboard was jammed with incoming phone calls — apparently about the healthcare bill. Democratic leaders pleaded with uncommitted House members — even if they were inclined to vote “no” — to stand ready to support the bill if their vote would be decisive.

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Because of congressional rules and partisan politics, Democratic leaders are pushing the House to adopt the Senate version. The Catholic Health Association, which represents 2,000 health care sponsors, systems, hospitals, and long-term facilities, calls the Senate bill a “major first step” toward covering all Americans. CHA officials say the abortion language can be “corrected” after it passes.

George acknowledged the CHA’s difference of opinion. “The bishops, however, judge that the flaws are so fundamental that they vitiate the good that the bill intends to promote,” he said.

“Assurances that the moral objections to the legislation can be met only after the bill is passed seem a little like asking us, in Midwestern parlance, to buy a pig in a poke,” he said.

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The forced march to pass ObamaCare continues, and all that matters now is raw politics. But opponents should go down swinging, and that means exposing such policy debacles as President Obama’s 11th-hour decision to apply the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax to “unearned income.”

That’s what savings and investment income are called in Washington, and this destructive tax wasn’t in either the House or Senate bills, though it may now become law with almost no scrutiny.

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House Democratic leadership: They’re trying to see if they have the 216 votes needed to get the bill passed. No Republicans have said they will vote for the bill. According to an ongoing CNN analysis, 26 of 253 House Democrats, including nine who supported the House plan in November, have said they would oppose the Senate plan, and nine say they would vote no but might reconsider if their concerns are addressed.

Of the remaining Democrats, 34 are undecided and 31 have declined to respond or state a position after numerous inquiries from CNN

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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Monday it opposes the Democratic health care plan heading for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives because of its language on abortion.

The group noted that it liked the House health care bill because it would continue the strict ban on federal financing of abortion. But it said the Senate version would open the door to federal financing, and it is the Senate version heading to the House for a vote.

Senate Democrats have insisted their bill would not allow federal financing of abortion, but George and the Catholic group disagreed.

“The Catholic bishops regretfully hold that it must be opposed unless and until these serious moral problems are addressed,” said Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the president of the conference.

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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Monday it opposes the Democratic health care plan heading for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives because of its language on abortion.

The group noted that it liked the House health care bill because it would continue the strict ban on federal financing of abortion. But it said the Senate version would open the door to federal financing, and it is the Senate version heading to the House for a vote.

Senate Democrats have insisted their bill would not allow federal financing of abortion, but George and the Catholic group disagreed.

“The Catholic bishops regretfully hold that it must be opposed unless and until these serious moral problems are addressed,” said Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the president of the conference.

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Check it out.

Check it out.

It could all come down to abortion. Health-care reform hangs in the balance. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, is desperately trying to round up the last few votes. If the House passes a bill the Senate passed in December, it can then be tweaked through the “reconciliation” process and sent to President Barack Obama for signature. But every single House Republican is likely to vote no, so Ms Pelosi needs 216 Democratic votes (out of 253) for a majority. This is proving surprisingly hard. Among the holdouts are a dozen or so pro-life Democrats, several of them Midwestern Catholics, who object to the abortion provisions in the Senate bill.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, abortion has been legally protected since 1973 and neither Congress nor any state has the power to ban it. But a law called the Hyde amendment bars federal funding for abortion, except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother. The question now is whether Obamacare will use taxpayers’ money to subsidise abortion more widely. Mr Obama insists that it will not. Under his plan, many individuals and small businesses will buy subsidised health insurance through state-sponsored exchanges. Under the Senate bill, they would only be able to obtain abortion coverage through these exchanges if they paid for it with a separate, unsubsidised, cheque. Thus, federal dollars would be kept out of abortion clinics, say the bill’s supporters. But many pro-lifers are not convinced. So the version of the health bill that was passed by the House would have required those who wanted abortion coverage to buy a completely separate insurance policy. The Democrat who wrote the House abortion provision, Bart Stupak, says he won’t back the Senate bill. Several other pro-life Democrats may also balk.

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It could all come down to abortion. Health-care reform hangs in the balance. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, is desperately trying to round up the last few votes. If the House passes a bill the Senate passed in December, it can then be tweaked through the “reconciliation” process and sent to President Barack Obama for signature. But every single House Republican is likely to vote no, so Ms Pelosi needs 216 Democratic votes (out of 253) for a majority. This is proving surprisingly hard. Among the holdouts are a dozen or so pro-life Democrats, several of them Midwestern Catholics, who object to the abortion provisions in the Senate bill.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, abortion has been legally protected since 1973 and neither Congress nor any state has the power to ban it. But a law called the Hyde amendment bars federal funding for abortion, except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother. The question now is whether Obamacare will use taxpayers’ money to subsidise abortion more widely. Mr Obama insists that it will not. Under his plan, many individuals and small businesses will buy subsidised health insurance through state-sponsored exchanges. Under the Senate bill, they would only be able to obtain abortion coverage through these exchanges if they paid for it with a separate, unsubsidised, cheque. Thus, federal dollars would be kept out of abortion clinics, say the bill’s supporters. But many pro-lifers are not convinced. So the version of the health bill that was passed by the House would have required those who wanted abortion coverage to buy a completely separate insurance policy. The Democrat who wrote the House abortion provision, Bart Stupak, says he won’t back the Senate bill. Several other pro-life Democrats may also balk.

Read it all.

The survey shows astonishing intensity and sharp opposition to reform, far more than national polls reflect. For 82% of those surveyed, the heath-care bill is either the top or one of the top three issues for deciding whom to support for Congress next November. (That number goes to 88% among independent women.) Sixty percent want Congress to start from scratch on a bipartisan health-care reform proposal or stop working on it this year. Majorities say the legislation will make them and their loved ones (53%), the economy (54%) and the U.S. health-care system (55%) worse off””quite the trifecta.

Seven in 10 would vote against a House member who votes for the Senate health-care bill with its special interest provisions. That includes 45% of self-identified Democrats, 72% of independents and 88% of Republicans. Three in four disagree that the federal government should mandate that everyone buy a government-approved insurance plan (64% strongly so), and 81% say any reform should focus first on reducing costs. Three quarters agree that Americans have the right to choose not to participate in any health-care system or plan without a penalty or fine.

That translates into specific concerns with the Senate legislation””and none of these objections would be addressed by the proposed fixes. Over 70%””indeed in several districts over 80%””of respondents, across party lines, said that the following information made them less supportive: the bill mandates that individuals purchase insurance or face penalties; it cuts Medicare Advantage; it will force potentially millions to lose existing coverage; it will cost an estimated $2.3 trillion over its first 10 years; and it will grant unprecedented new powers to the Health and Human Services secretary.

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The survey shows astonishing intensity and sharp opposition to reform, far more than national polls reflect. For 82% of those surveyed, the heath-care bill is either the top or one of the top three issues for deciding whom to support for Congress next November. (That number goes to 88% among independent women.) Sixty percent want Congress to start from scratch on a bipartisan health-care reform proposal or stop working on it this year. Majorities say the legislation will make them and their loved ones (53%), the economy (54%) and the U.S. health-care system (55%) worse off””quite the trifecta.

Seven in 10 would vote against a House member who votes for the Senate health-care bill with its special interest provisions. That includes 45% of self-identified Democrats, 72% of independents and 88% of Republicans. Three in four disagree that the federal government should mandate that everyone buy a government-approved insurance plan (64% strongly so), and 81% say any reform should focus first on reducing costs. Three quarters agree that Americans have the right to choose not to participate in any health-care system or plan without a penalty or fine.

That translates into specific concerns with the Senate legislation””and none of these objections would be addressed by the proposed fixes. Over 70%””indeed in several districts over 80%””of respondents, across party lines, said that the following information made them less supportive: the bill mandates that individuals purchase insurance or face penalties; it cuts Medicare Advantage; it will force potentially millions to lose existing coverage; it will cost an estimated $2.3 trillion over its first 10 years; and it will grant unprecedented new powers to the Health and Human Services secretary.

Read it all.

Too much cancer screening, too many heart tests, too many cesarean sections. A spate of recent reports suggests that many Americans are being overtreated. Maybe even President Barack Obama, champion of an overhaul and cost-cutting of the health care system.

Is it doctors practicing defensive medicine? Or are patients so accustomed to a culture of medical technology that they insist on extensive tests and treatments?

A combination of both is at work, but new evidence and updated guidelines are recommending a step back and more thorough doctor-patient talks about risks and benefits of screening tests.

Americans, including the commander in chief, need to realize that “more care is not necessarily better care,” wrote cardiologist Rita Redberg, editor of Archives of Internal Medicine. She was commenting on Obama’s recent physical.

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Too much cancer screening, too many heart tests, too many cesarean sections. A spate of recent reports suggests that many Americans are being overtreated. Maybe even President Barack Obama, champion of an overhaul and cost-cutting of the health care system.

Is it doctors practicing defensive medicine? Or are patients so accustomed to a culture of medical technology that they insist on extensive tests and treatments?

A combination of both is at work, but new evidence and updated guidelines are recommending a step back and more thorough doctor-patient talks about risks and benefits of screening tests.

Americans, including the commander in chief, need to realize that “more care is not necessarily better care,” wrote cardiologist Rita Redberg, editor of Archives of Internal Medicine. She was commenting on Obama’s recent physical.

Read it all.

The Democrats have not been completely irresponsible. It’s just that as the health fight has gone on, their passion for coverage has swamped their less visceral commitment to reducing debt. The result is a bill that is fundamentally imbalanced.

This past year, we’ve seen how hard it is to even pass legislation that expands benefits. To actually reduce benefits and raise taxes, we’re going to need legislators who wake up in the morning passionate about fiscal sanity. The ones we have now are just making things worse.

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A US Catholic group on Friday accused Roman Catholic bishops of meddling in health care reforms by making backroom deals to ensure the bill does not allow funding for abortion.

“Religious and ethical concerns can legitimately inform public policy, but the bishops have overstepped the mark,” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice.

“Interference by the US Catholic bishops in health care reform does not help women. The bishops should not be allowed to use health care reform to restrict women’s access to safe and legal reproductive healthcare services,” he said.

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A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted by President Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.

The agency says its future-year predictions of tax revenues are more pessimistic than the administration’s. That’s because CBO projects slightly slower economic growth than the White House.

The deficit picture has turned alarmingly worse since the recession that started at the end of 2007, never dipping below 4 percent of the size of the economy over the next decade. Economists say that deficits of that size are unsustainable and could put upward pressure on interest rates, crowd out private investment in the economy and ultimately erode the nation’s standard of living.

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A dozen House of Representatives Democrats opposed to abortion are willing to kill President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan unless it satisfies their demand for language barring the procedure, Representative Bart Stupak said on Thursday.

“Yes. We’re prepared to take responsibility,” Stupak said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.

“Let’s face it. I want to see healthcare. But we’re not going to bypass the principles of belief that we feel strongly about,” he said.

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Of the remaining issues with the potential to bring down the entire health overhaul effort, the one that lawmakers fear most is abortion.

Abortion is such a politically hazardous issue that sponsors of both the House and Senate health bills have said their object was to maintain the status quo. “It is not the intention of this bill to, as the speaker has said, to change the policy that has been in place for three decades,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, (D-MD), on Tuesday. Hoyer was referring to what is known as the Hyde Amendment. It has barred federal funds from being used to pay for abortions since 1977.

But keeping the health bills abortion-neutral has proved impossible. And now the abortion language in the Senate-passed bill in particular could threaten the strategy Democratic leaders hope to use to get a final measure to President Obama’s desk for a signature.

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Read it all (and follow the link to the original NPR story).

As always with the Obama compromise offers, this offer seemed to be both sincere and insincere. Embodying the core contradiction of the Obama presidency, the president seemed both to want to craft a new package and also to defend the strictly Democratic approach. I think he’s a bipartisan man stuck in a partisan town, but maybe he’s an iron partisan fist in a velvet postpartisan glove.

Fourth, you got to see how confident Republicans are. Obama’s compromise offer is one the Republicans can happily refuse. In their eyes, he is saying: If you don’t make some concessions now, I’m going to punch myself in the face. If you don’t embrace parts of my bill, I will waste the next three months trying to push an unpopular measure through an ugly reconciliation process that will probably lead to failure anyway.

Fifth, you got to see at least one area of bipartisan agreement. Neither side was willing to be specific about how to cut costs and raise revenue. The Republicans continued to demagogue efforts to restrain Medicare spending. The Democrats (and the Republicans) conveniently neglected to mention the fact that they had just gutted the long-term revenue source for their entire package, the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans. That tax was diluted and postponed until 2018. There is no way that members of a Congress eight years from now are going to accede to a $1 trillion tax increase to pay for a measure that the 2010 Congress wasn’t brave enough to pay for itself.

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Medicare payments to doctors will fall by 21 percent starting on Monday, but Congress may soon act to block the cut. It’s the latest reminder of a chronic problem for the federal government: figuring out how to pay doctors who treat Medicare patients.

The story goes all the way back to 1965, when the federal government was about to launch Medicare ”” the health-insurance plan for the elderly.

The idea of a government-run health-insurance plan made doctors nervous, and Lyndon Johnson’s administration was worried that doctors wouldn’t take Medicare patients. So Joseph Califano, Johnson’s adviser for domestic affairs, made what seemed like a small concession: Medicare would pay doctors whatever they thought was reasonable.

That worked out well for doctors. They had been providing lots of free care for old people, and they started getting paid whatever they asked for, as long as it wasn’t wildly out of line with what others were charging….

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With uncharacteristic bluntness, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Congress on Wednesday that the United States could soon face a debt crisis like the one in Greece, and declared that the central bank will not help legislators by printing money to pay for the ballooning federal debt.

Recent events in Europe, where Greece and other nations with large, unsustainable deficits like the United States are having increasing trouble selling their debt to investors, show that the U.S. is vulnerable to a sudden reversal of fortunes that would force taxpayers to pay higher interest rates on the debt, Mr. Bernanke said.

“It’s not something that is 10 years away. It affects the markets currently,” he told the House Financial Services Committee. “It is possible that bond markets will become worried about the sustainability [of yearly deficits over $1 trillion], and we may find ourselves facing higher interest rates even today….”

“We’re not going to monetize the debt,” Mr. Bernanke declared flatly, stressing that Congress needs to start making plans to bring down the deficit to avoid such a dangerous dilemma for the Fed.

“It is very, very important for Congress and administration to come to some kind of program, some kind of plan that will credibly show how the United States government is going to bring itself back to a sustainable position.”

Read it all (my emphasis).

“It is time to set aside partisan divisions and special interest pressures to find ways to enact genuine reform. We encourage the administration and Congress to work in a bipartisan manner marked by political courage, vision and leadership,” the bishops said [in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this week].

“As pastors and teachers,” the letter continued, “we believe genuine health care reform must protect human life and dignity from conception to natural death, not threaten them, especially for the voiceless and vulnerable. We believe health care legislation must respect the consciences of providers, taxpayers, purchasers of insurance and others, not violate them.

“We believe universal coverage should be truly universal and should not be denied to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here. Providing affordable and accessible health care that clearly reflects these fundamental principles is a public good, moral imperative and urgent national priority.”

“We hope and pray,” the letter added, “that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine health care reform that protects the life, dignity, consciences and health of all.”

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The nationally televised session stretched over more than seven hours and, to no one’s surprise, yielded no new agreement, although lawmakers strove to maintain an atmosphere of decorum and cooperation””even as they aired their warring views.

The president tried to project the sense he was searching for a middle ground. “We might surprise ourselves and find out that we agree more than we disagree,” Mr. Obama said at the start, before adding what seemed like a judgment rooted more in experience than hope: “It may turn out, on the other hand, there’s just too big of a gulf.”

Republicans, only emphasizing the gulf, said they’d like to wipe out the last 13 months from the record and start over. “This is a car that can’t be recalled and fixed,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) said.

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You may not have noticed, but today is a very important day for US politics, world economic prospects and even for the global balance of power between Western democracy and benign dictatorship along Chinese lines. Why? Because today marks either the beginning of the end of Barack Obama’ presidency, or the end of the beginning.

At 10am US Eastern Time, he will host an all-day “summit”, broadcast live on nationwide TV, with his Republican congressional opponents and his wayward Democratic supporters, to try to establish some kind of political consensus on the top priority of his presidency ”” reform of the ruinously expensive US healthcare system. Medicine now absorbs 17 per cent of US national income, double the average in other advanced economies and half as much again as Switzerland, which has the next most expensive healthcare.

If nothing is done to change the US healthcare system, it can be stated with mathematical certainty that the US Government and many leading US companies will be driven into bankruptcy, a fate that befell General Motors and Chrysler largely because of their inability to meet retired workers’ contractually guaranteed medical costs.

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