The extremists. That is how the President of the Unites States describes Americans who do not want to see the federal government control over half of all health care spending. And just who are some of these extremists? Looking over just today’s papers we find:

• Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria: “Obama’s message to the country appears to be, “We have a dysfunctional health-care system with out-of-control costs, and let’s add 45 million people to it.” Americans see a health-care bill that has been produced by the old Democratic machine rather than the new Democratic technocrats — more Lyndon Johnson than Larry Summers. It might be the only way to get a law passed, and it might please the party’s base, but it will dismay independents.”
• The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt: “Health-care reform should not add to the deficit. It should control health-care costs. And, once reform is passed, the government will get serious about deficit reduction. Unfortunately, the House bill fails his first test.”
• Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT): “If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote.”

Everybody listed above acknowledges we desperately need to fix health care policy. They just do not believe that the House plan is the best way to go about doing so. Conservatives have our own, patient centered, vision for health care reform. There has even been some legislation introduced, some better than others, that reflect this vision. Supporting health care policy that empowers patients, and not a new Health Czar, is common sense, not extremism.

There is a reason the leaders on the left are desperate to keep Members of Congress in Washington and away from their constituents. If they had to face real Americans, defenders of the House health care bill would have to defend the facts that their bill:

• Has a true ten year cost of $2.6 trillion while our country already faces record deficits.
• Raises taxes by $700 billion while our country already faces 10.2% unemployment.
• Massively expands a Medicaid program that already provides substandard reimbursement rates, is bankrupting states, and is bankrupt itself.

And that does not even include the possibility that Obama’s Health Czar would use the authority granted in the bill to use the public option to destroy private health care entirely. Perhaps most striking about the President’s performance on Saturday is that he opened his 20 minute health care pep rally with some remarks about the tragic shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. That, Mr. President, is extremism. Opposing policies through democratic means is not.

Quick Hits:

• President Barack Obama will be absent when Germans celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall today.
• The Army’s top general, who has long raised concerns that repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan could damage the military’s readiness, said he backed an increase in U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
• China has offered oil and mineral rich African governments $10 billion in low-interest development loans over the next three years and forgiveness on some remaining debt.
• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told the military and civil militias today to prepare for war as a deterrent to a U.S.-led attack after American troops gained access to military bases in neighboring Colombia.
• State worker at the California Franchise Tax Board says members of the local SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose alleged corruption within the union.

The health care bill passed by the House tonight took another step towards transferring power over personal health care decisions from individuals to bureaucrats in Washington. The Republican alternative was a good strong first step of targeted reforms that are necessary to improve health care financing and delivery.

If it were to become law, the House bill would put the government in control of over half of all health care spending and would dramatically shift America’s health care system from one that is largely private to one that is subordinated to government control.

The bill engineers a massive expansion of the Medicaid, a welfare program that provides substandard care to lower-income and poor Americans and threatens state budgets. The addition of the public plan, a new federal health care entitlement, would add to the crushing tax burden Americans already face from exiting entitlements. Even worse, millions of Americans would be pushed out of their existing health care coverage, notwithstanding the promises of the President.

The bill would create massive bureaucracy. Under the bill, the new health care commissioner would in fact become a health care czar. This bureaucrat would exercise unprecedented power over the kinds of benefits and medical services available to individuals and families.

The bill also creates new inequities. While it would extent lavish subsidies to certain individuals, it would exclude those with employer-based coverage and would guarantee that others would be confined to substandard care in the Medicaid program.

Contrary to the promises of the President, the House bill would impose new taxes on all Americans regardless of class or income. The employer mandate and the individual mandate would tax the middle class. While the country is trying to recover from a deep and dangerous recession, it is ironic that the day after the jobless rate officially reached 10.2% that Congress would insist on imposing more taxes on individuals and businesses.

The President has insisted that reform should bend the curve on health care spending. This legislation makes a mockery of that goal. The true cost of the bill is in excess of the President’s $900 billion spending target — the full costs will run in the trillions.

The good news is the battle is not over. There is consensus in the U.S. for serious reform of the health care system. But, there is no consensus for a federal government takeover of 1/6th of the US economy.

The first step is to keep Congress in town. The second is to keep them monitored and available for whenever leaders want to summons them for backroom meetings—sometimes to discuss and sometimes to pressure and browbeat and offer deals. A “buddy system” is sometimes assigned so a fellow Congressman from the party’s whip team keeps tab on each undecided member’s whereabouts, their cell and other private phone numbers, the places they tend to hangout between votes, and similar information.

Members don’t like to be found and pressured. As one speaker noted at Thursday’s “House Call” tea party event at the U.S. Capitol: “There may be some members hiding right now. They may be in the basement. They may be in the cafeteria, pretending they’re not a Congressman.”

So special gatherings are created, not only to communicate but also to attract the reluctant to join their party’s herd. Then they can be culled out by party leaders for individual attention, much as a sheepdog picks out individual sheep from a flock.

That’s one benefit of scheduling a group meeting with President Obama, as party leaders have set for Saturday. It’s also a reason for scheduling other votes on the House floor, to flush individuals out of hiding and work them over. It’s common for members to rush into the chamber, cast a vote, and try to rush out before they’re caught. So multiple votes are scheduled.

It’s all part of the behind-the-scenes effort to whip crucial votes. It’s not unique to the health care vote. But it’s part of Congress that most people never see. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is taking a big risk with her self-imposed Saturday deadline. Her party has 258 House seats; she only needs 218 of them to support her.

For months she told the media she had the votes. Recent events demonstrate that she didn’t then and still doesn’t now. Pelosi therefore emboldens internal Democrat opposition if she cannot deliver. There’s already talk that Saturday’s deadline will be missed. The problem getting her own party’s approval exposes significant rifts among Democrats. Once Pelosi expends energy on this all-out effort, many within her own party might deny her a second chance if she cannot win this weekend.

Ernest Istook served 14 years as a U.S. Congressman, and is now a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation