What’s worse than a cold shower with Rahm Emanuel?

Realizing they could get the votes to pass this monstrosity.

Don’t blink, Bart Stupak looks weak.  (H/T: Backyard Conservative over at the Potluck.)

Stupak:

“I’m more optimistic than I was a week ago”

Which means we need to worry a little more.  Call your Senators.  Call your Reps.  Jam the damn switchboards.

A reminder of what’s at stake:

For the Liberal Democrats, Norman Lamb blamed the horror stories on ‘Labour’s failure to put patient care above its obsession with targets’.

Between 400 and 1,200 patients in Britain’s National Health Service may have died prematurely as a result of “a lack of care and mistreatment which have no place in any civilized and well run health service,”

Hospital patients were left unwashed for up to a month by uncaring nurses–as bosses cut staff and slashed costs, an inquiry revealed yesterday.   The sick were “routinely neglected” at Stafford Hospital, where it is feared up to 1,200 died needlessly in filthy, understaffed wards.

From Quite Rightly:

Witness the  list of physicians’ organizations who wrote to the U.S. Senate opposing the Senate bill “because it will threaten patient access and harm quality”:

• American College of Surgeons
• American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 
• American Academy of Ophthalmology 
• American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery 
• American Association of Neurological Surgeons 
• American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons 
• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 
• American College of Osteopathic Surgeons 
• American Osteopathic Academy of Orthopedics 
• American Society of Anesthesiologists 
• American Society of Breast Surgeons 
• American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery 
• American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons 
• American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery 
• American Society of Plastic Surgeons 
• American Urological Association 
• Congress of Neurological Surgeons 
• Society for Vascular Surgery 
• Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic 
• Surgeons Society of Gynecologic Oncologists 

More on the plot twists from Pundette and Legal Insurrection.