Now that Harry Reid cobbled together 60 votes in the middle of the night, is Washington closer to grabbing control of our health care system?

Yes.

Is the fight over?  It's not even close to over.

And Abraham Lincoln would argue this monstrosity can still be stopped--will be stopped--if we put in the work.  Lincoln said, "With public sentiment, nothing can fail.  Without it, nothing can succeed."

This legislation does not have public sentiment behind it.  The Real Clear Politics average of the last 9 most respected polls finds that only 37.9 percent of Americans support this legislation while 51.6 oppose it.

Monday's 1 am vote was the first of 3 votes in which Harry Reid will need 60 votes.  In a party-line vote, he got all of the Democrats to vote to "invoke cloture" or end debate on the 338-page "manager's amendment" he had just presented to the public hours earlier--something that was offensive to many who want a more open and transparent process, starting with at least 72 hours to review legislation.  These 338 pages list the changes made to the 2,000+ page bill.  Here you'll find the handouts to the holdouts like Ben Nelson, who gets your hard earned dollars to pay for Nebraska's Medicaid costs forever. 

Because of procedural tactics Harry Reid is using, there will be two more 60 vote thresholds he'll need to clear this week.  The next one is probably going to occur around 7:30 am on Tuesday morning on the "pending substitute amendment" which is the full 2,000+ page bill.  It will be another cloture vote to end debate.  That will begin another 30 hour clock that will end around 2 pm Wednesday when the final cloture vote requiring 60 votes will happen on the overall bill--both the full 2,000+ page original plus the 338 page manager's amendment filled with plunder for certain states.

After that, possibly on Christmas eve or Christmas day, there will be the vote for final passage--but they only need 50 votes at this point, which Reid has easily, which is why the votes requiring 60 are the critical ones.

Then comes another big battle that will at least take until mid-to-late January. 

The House and the Senate have to see if they can come to an agreement on the major differences between their bills.  This is usually done in a "conference" where each chamber names conferees to meet and come to an agreement.  Identical bills then go back to each chamber to vote on, and lastly the bill heads to the president to sign into law.

But rumor is that Reid and Pelosi are going to avoid this standard process because it takes too long--never mind the importance of and reasons for deliberate consideration, they need to get these programs that start in 2014 passed ASAP!  Instead they are going to just send "messages" back and forth between the two chambers until they come to an agreement, continuing the behind-closed-doors process that has characterized each step of this process, despite Candidate Obama's pledge to have the discussion out in the open and even televised on C-SPAN. 

But even behind closed doors, finding agreement will be no small task.  This is precisely why we need to keep up the pressure, which we made easier with all the tools and suggestions in our Online Health Care War Room where you can:

• easily call your Representative in the House;
• call your Senators, and
• find advice on what else to do that is effective, like get your friends and family together to write letters, visit your representative's district offices near your home, and call your local newspaper, TV, and radio stations to update them on your efforts.

The House is (thankfully) in recess until mid-January, when they are expected to come back for one day of votes on Wednesday, January 13th and then back full-time starting a week later, when the Senate is scheduled to come back, too. 

The "messaging" between chambers can continue while in the interim, which is when we need to stay most active.

With Congress not back to vote on any agreement they may or may not reach for almost a month, we have a lot of time to expose exactly what is in this bill, a lot of time to meet with Congressmen back home in the districts they are supposed to represent, and a lot of time for public opinion to keep going south, as it has as more has been revealed about the contents of this scheme.  You can stay up-to-date with our constantly updated Issue Development section of the War Room.

If the two chambers are able to come to an agreement using this "messages between houses" technique over the next few weeks, they will then need to vote on the agreement.  But because they will have subverted the usual process, the agreement will not be "privileged" in the Senate, meaning a series of 60-vote threshold cloture votes will need to happen again.  And Nancy Pelosi will need to find the votes again in her chamber.

If we do our job over then next 4 weeks, it will be very difficult for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. 

There are so many major differences between the House and the Senate bill that they may not be able to resolve them and still maintain the fragile/purchased coalition that passed bills in each house--by a narrow 220-115 margin in the House and a no-room-to-move 60-40 margin in the Senate.

As I see it, there are 3 major rifts on the Left:

1. Progressives/Public Option
2. Pro-Life Democrats/Abortion Funding
3. Unions/"Cadillac Plan" Tax Increase

Progressive activists are furious that the Senate bill does not include a government insurance option--the so-called "public option".  Nancy Pelosi made a big deal about the public option in the House version, and 57 House members signed a letter saying they will not support a bill without it.  The Senate bill does not have it.

In the Senate, Joe Lieberman famously made it clear he would join the Republicans in a filibuster of any bill that does include a public option.

Pro-Life Democrats in the House voted for Pelosi's bill because it included the "Stupak language"--an amendment banning federal funding of abortions.  In fact, 19 members signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi saying they would not vote for the bill unless it included such language, and 41 signed a letter saying they would not vote fore the bill if it DID include such language.

Rep. Bart Stupak says that the language in the Senate bill is "unacceptable" and that it represents a "dramatic shift if federal policy."  It is difficult to see where the middle ground on this one is.

And then there is the trouble the Democrats have with the unions--which is especially problematic because this is a fight about who gets taxed to pay for this trillion dollar bill.  The Senate bill taxes "Cadillac" insurance plans--a frequently regurgitated, if inelegant phrase referring to more expensive/expansive insurance plans.  The unions oppose the "Cadillac tax" because, thanks to generous collective bargaining agreements that helped bankrupt the US auto industry, many union members enjoy such plans.

Instead, the House places a big tax on those who make a lot of money and sides with the unions in rejecting the "Cadillac plan" tax--in no small part because the unions have much more concentrated power in certain House districts than they do in entire states as represented by Senators.  The Senate has rejected the House's tax hike on the highly productive. 

Despite these major difference, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) insisted on Fox News Sunday, "It is very clear that the bill — the final bill — to pass in the United States Senate is going to have to be very close to the bill that has been negotiated here...Otherwise, you will not get 60 votes in the United States Senate.”

Howard Dean, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press made it clear how big the rift is when he said of the Senate bill, “This can’t be the final version of the bill.  It simply sets us on a track in this country which is expensive and where we’re going to have lots more political fights...I would let this thing go to conference committee, and let’s see if we can fix it some more."

Sen. Conrad is right, and so is Howard Dean, which is exactly why this fight is nowhere near over.

To all the activists out there, keep up the good work.  Please use our activism tools and please help us get these tools into the hands of more people who want to help.

Together, we can stop this power grab.