Breaking: Kucinich To Vote Yes  —  In a big get for House Dems, Dennis Kucinich just made it official: He's voting for the Senate bill, making him the first member to go on record fliping his vote from No to Yes.  —  “In the past week it's become clear that the vote on the final bill will be very close …

House Majority Leader: 'We're Going to Have a Clean Up or Down Vote'  —  Steny Hoyer, Eric Cantor Spar Over Health Care Vote Count, Parliamentary Tactics  —  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer today hinted that Democrats may use a controversial parliamentary procedure to pass the health care bill …

UPDATED EXCLUSIVE: New England Journal of Medicine says it didn't publish or produce health care “survey”  —  Right-wing media have seized on a dubious, three-month old email “survey” that purports to show that physicians are concerned about health care reform and that 46 percent …

Netanyahu's brother-in-law: Obama is an anti-Semite  —  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's brother-in-law Dr. Hagai Ben-Artzi on Wednesday called U.S. President Barack Obama an anti-Semite in an interview with Army Radio.  —  “It's not that Obama doesn't like Bibi,” he referring to Netanyahu using his nickname.

FACT CHECK: Premiums would rise under Obama plan  —  WASHINGTON — Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.  —  Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say.

Was Medicare popular when it passed?  —  For some time, I've been trying to find good polling from the passage of Medicare.  According to Greg Sargent, though, the Democrats beat me to it: … I wonder how many of the legislators who took the tough vote to move Medicare forward regret doing that today.

Health care reform protesters mock man carrying sign saying he has Parkinson's disease.  —  Activists staged “competing rallies” outside of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy's (D-OH) district office yesterday, in a noisy, often confrontational attempt to influence the undecided congresswoman's vote.

Allies everywhere feeling snubbed by President Obama  —  The contretemps between President Obama and Israel needs to be seen in a broader global context.  The president who ran against “unilateralism” in the 2008 campaign has worse relations overall with American allies than George W. Bush did in his second term.

Oberstar will back final bill  —  Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar, an ardent backer of the House abortion restrictions, will vote for the final package after a further review of the Senate's language, giving top Democrats a critical endorsement as they lean on their rank-and-file to back the Senate bill.

SPECIAL REPORT-Insurer targeted HIV patients to drop coverage  —  USA-HEALTHCARE/INSURANCE-HIV (RPT, SPECIAL REPORT)  —  * HIV positive at 17, college freshman lost insurance  —  * Fortis used algorithms to target HIV patients  —  * Fortis, now Assurant, ordered to pay $10 million

The media myth of Obama's “falling poll numbers”  —  The release of an Associated Press poll last week that showed President Obama enjoying a healthy job approval rating of 53 percent didn't generate much news beyond the wire service and produced even less commentary among the media's chattering class.

Catholic nuns urge passage of Obama's health bill  —  WASHINGTON — Catholic nuns are urging Congress to pass President Barack Obama's health care plan, in an unusual public break with bishops who say it would subsidize abortion.  —  Some 60 leaders of religious orders representing 59,000 …

McConnell Strategy Shuns Bipartisanship  —  WASHINGTON — Before the health care fight, before the economic stimulus package, before President Obama even took office, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, had a strategy for his party: use his extensive knowledge of Senate procedure …

Democrats: Vote your conscience on health care  —  I feel your pain.  Eighteen years ago, I was elected on the coattails of a popular young Democratic president who promised a post-partisan Washington.  A year later, with partisan gridlock capturing the Capitol, there was a razor-thin vote …

Jobs Bill Passes in Senate With 11 Votes From Republicans  —  WASHINGTON — The Senate approved and sent to President Obama on Wednesday what Congressional Democrats hope will be the first in a series of bills spurring employment by providing tax breaks and other hiring incentives to businesses.

The Kucinich Switch And The Whip Count  —  Dennis Kucinich's reversal and decision to support the health care bill changes the dynamic around the vote, but the ultimate question of whether or not the bill will pass was always going to be decided by the right flank of the caucus.

CBO crumbles under health workload  —  The Democrats' push to get healthcare reform passed through Congress is putting incredible strain on staff in the Congressional Budget Office - a stressor that may have contributed to the recent incorrect scoring of a draft House provision.

House and Senate GOP plan joint closed-door meeting Thurs.  —  Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick's (D-Ariz.) support for healthcare reform legislation brings the final count to 207, Chris Bowers reports on Open Left.  Also, President Barack Obama's decision to appear on Fox News only adds …

Combat dogs take to the skies for secret missions in Afghanistan  —  Two members of the Austrian special forces join Nato's Operation Cold Response, one of Europe's biggest military exercises, in Narvik, Norway.  —  Dropping from 10,000ft, they glide in order to land unnoticed.

49% Say Israel Should Stop Building Settlements As Part of Peace Deal  —  Israel's insistence on building new settlements in disputed Palestinian territory has heightened tensions with the United States.  Forty-nine percent (49%) of U.S. voters think Israel should be required to stop …

Bibi's Tense Time-Out  —  So, Barack Obama can lose his temper without a teleprompter.  And we have the supremely aggravating Bibi Netanyahu to thank for that.  —  On St. Patrick's Day, of all days, we wouldn't want to think that our president did not know how to pick his donnybrooks.

Costello resisting White House pleas on health-care  —  WASHINGTON — The phone has been ringing in the office of Rep. Jerry Costello with some powerful folks on the other end of the line.  —  But thus far, Costello, an 11-term Democrat from Belleville, is planning to vote ‘no’ on the Senate version …

Sometimes you have to burn a village to rule it  —  I'm going to pull a reverse-Brooks in this post, but break the rules and simply tell you what I'm doing at the beginning: On the deem and pass question, Democrats are wrong, but Republicans are wronger.  —  The problem with deem and pass isn't, well, deem and pass.

In It For The Money?  Conservative PAC Spends Big, But Not On Candidates  —  A California-based PAC called the Republican Majority Campaign spent nearly all of the $1.7 million it raked in from conservative donors last year, but less than 2% of the money went to supporting candidates or independent political spending.