This little item on Politico is rather interesting.

They haven’t even gotten to the really controversial amendments yet in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where Mike Ross and the Blue Dogs have the health care bill in limbo. That’ll be next week unless miraculous agreement arises over the weekend.

But on Friday there was a Republican-sponsored amendment requiring the Health and Human Services secretary to terminate duplicative programs created under the bill. I don’t know these duplications; I don’t know why you’d purposely create them; I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to end them. Most likely, there’s more to it than that. I’m not getting into that here. I’m getting into issues of political solidarity.

Anyway, the Blue Dogs supported the amendment and managed to get it passed, 29-to-27, even as Chairman Henry Waxman lobbied Ross and another leading Blue Dog to try to work something else out, and even as his aide hovered over the vote-counter, or so Politico’s brief item says.

I don’t want to overstate. But this is the most important domestic issue of our time. And this could get dramatic with a Democratic chairman trying to hold his committee together as a band of members, well, revolt might be a tad strong, or not.

And another thing: The CBO officially scored the House bill last night and it’s bad news on the deficit, as Politico says here. The only potential good news for Obama-Waxman-Pelosi et al is that the Democrats propose a new accounting system to take some Medicaid reimbursement off-budget, and the CBO says its can’t formally estimate that without some real data first. So you may hear Democrats saying the CBO report is actually supportive of the bill, invoking a long-term surplus. Daily Kos is reporting it that way. I don’t know who’s right; I don’t know who’s wrong. I do know the political sides would seem to be unchanged by the report.

UPDATE: Now it appears the Democratic National Committee is going to unleash some money for ads in the TV markets of the Blue Dogs on House Insurance and Commerce — to pressure them. That means money for Little Rock TV and maybe a little heartburn for Mike Ross. It’s interesting, but maybe not as much as I’m thinking, that one’s own party would side against one in an ad campaign.