The news keeps getting tougher for the House Leadership in their irrational quest to pass their ObamaCare bill.

First, the Associated Press is reporting the bill will cost $1.2 Trillion without the doctor fix of $250 billion.

The new total will be $1.45 trillion — because the House Leadership intends to create a “self-executing rule” that would pull the doctor fix apart from the House ObamaCare bill — in order to keep the cost at $1.2 Trillion, then fuse the doc fix back into the ObamaCare bill after it passes the House.

It is like a magic trick, presto — $250 billion in new spending just appears in the bill after it passes.

Meanwhile, the new $1.45 billion ought to send the Blue Dogs scampering from the bill.

Then, of course, the House is finally grappling with two thermonuclear issues: abortion and immigration.

But, as numerous news reports state, the Democratic Leaders still do not have the votes for the bill — rumors abound, the most credible put the House vote count at less than 200 for the bill.

The more fundamental question is, why is the U.S. House voting before the U.S. Senate? House leadership has already moved the vote from Thursday to Friday, and are now talking about the vote being moved to Saturday or Monday of Tuesday of next week. House leaders should just punt the vote until after the Senate, and save their members — and themselves — the pain of voting.

Especially when the Senate is now talking post-Thanksgiving for its floor vote?

Why is the Speaker forcing its members to walk the plank again, prior to the Senate vote, especially when it is likely that the bill will never get off the Senate floor?

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Apparently the secret to passing ObamaCare is for the President to acknowledge that all Members of Congress have something they don’t like about the bill, but to vote for it regardless:

AP reports the President said in New York yesterday:

“The bill you least like” improves coverage for millions, he said in New York. “Let’s make sure that we keep our eye on the prize.”

Seems a little strange to announce this in New York, a blue state, that members need to hold their nose and vote for health care reform. Is this the winning formula? Is holding New York members of Congress becoming tough? And if the President needed to say this in New York, what does this mean for the rest of the country?

The roll call vote on the motion to proceed to S. 1776 is instructive of what happens to a bill that cannot stop the filibuster on the motion to proceed. President Obama and the White House asked Senator Reid to put $247 billion in new spending off budget to buy off the American Medical Association. Majority Leader Reid was embarrassed. The White House, Senator Reid said, wanted him to bring the bill up. He needed 60 votes to stop the filibuster. He got 47 votes. Missed the mark by 13 votes. Here is the simple filibuster math (60 minus 13 = 47.)

Perhaps this is why President Obama did not go public on the vote, he did not want to risk a Chicago is knocked out in the first round of voting despite his personal lobbying for the Olympics type experience.

This is a lesson for everyone: no cloture, no laundry. And 60 votes in the Senate is a tough number to hit, even with 60 Democratic voting Senators (58 Dems and two independents). S. 1776 is dead. The bill did not even make it past the motion to proceed.

Today, AP ran a story questioning whether President Obama has the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster on ObamaCare. Really? Really, really. Here is some of Charles Babington’s piece:

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Slate’s John Dickerson has finally said what has been so glaringly obvious for so many months, but has been ignored, not discussed and generally denied by the MSM and the supporters of ObamaCare with great discipline: the internal divisions inside the Democratic Party over specific policy issues contained inside ObamaCare could cause it to collapse:

“With nearly all Republicans opposed to the president’s plan, the last stages of negotiations will be among Democratic factions. Obama came into office promising to bridge the partisan divide in Washington. But the outcome of the health care debate may depend more on his ability to bridge the divides in his own party.”

This is the “teachable moment” that comes from the vote and failure of the public option in the Senate Finance Committee.

The standard party line among the Democratic leadership — especially the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — has been the missteps, mistakes, chaos and general political failure of ObamaCare is all the Republican’s fault. But even the liberal FireDogLake and DailyKos know this blame-the-Republicans is goat food for the brain dead. The Public Option vote has put the lie to the it’s-the-Republican’s-fault.

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After Rep. Joe Wilson captured what many Americans were thinking during Obama’s Joint Session of Congress speech, I talked to an illegal alien to ask them, what do you think? Do you think if Obama’s plan passed you would get health care?

The first answer was, Yes, ObamaCare will give me health care because I get it now, paid for by the State, and I will get it under ObamaCare.

The second answer I got was more surprising, Obama can say he will not give health care to illegal aliens because he intends to make legal those who are here illegally.

Then, at the 9/12 Tea Party at the Capitol in D.C. I see this sign, saying precisely what the illegal alien told me.

So, low and behold, why should it surprise me that the President said the same thing that an illegal alien told me, and the same thing on the sign linked to above?

This morning in the Washington Times is reporting the following:

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won’t cover illegal immigrants, but argued that’s all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered - a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

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