House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) just announced that the House will NOT use the “deem and pass” scheme which seemed to be the path they had been on for several days.  He refused to say whether pushback from members of the Democratic Caucus was the reason for the change.

Hoyer said there would be two hours of debate before a vote on the reconciliation package followed immediately by a vote on the Senate bill.

If both were to pass, the Senate bill would go to the president to be signed into law and the reconciliation bill would go to the Senate…where it will face a barrage of Republican opposition and parliamentary attacks.

The change in plans is, unfortunately for the nation, a wise move for the Democrats because “deem and pass” would have faced serious court challenges despite the left’s trying to defend it by saying it’s been used plenty of times before.

If the House passes both bills and if Harry Reid can deliver 51 votes for the reconciliation package (as he is promising), whether that is the first version of reconciliation or some later version after whatever changes the Republicans are able to force, the next 8 months will be a non-stop show of Democrats talking about getting rid of “preexisting conditions exclusions for children” and Republicans talking about “gutting Medicare” and “massive tax hikes".   All health care, all the time.  Democrats believe they can talk the public into thinking the new law is good for them.  Republicans think the public will hate it even more than they do now once they realize how intrusive it is and how much it really is a government takeover of the health care system.

I think the Republicans will be right but the Democrats are “all in” at this point and have little to lose by trying their strategy.

In the meantime, the Capitol is teeming with Tea Party activists yelling “Kill the Bill".

At this point, what’s happened is that Democrats feel so certain they’re going to lose large numbers of seats in November that they’re telling their members “you might as well vote for this because you’re gonna lose anyway".