This morning, during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warned House Democrats that they will be held accountable for voting for the “special deals” in the Senate bill even if they eliminate those provisions in reconciliation. “Every election this fall will be a referendum on this bill,” McConnell said:

As everyone understands, if the House passes the Senate bill, it goes straight to the President for signature. So all of this discussion about the second bill, the reconciliation bill is really kind of irrelevant. If the House passes the Senate bill that goes to the President for a signature, that means that every single member of the House who would have voted for this, would have voted for the kickback, the purchase, the Gatorade, all of that, the Medicare cuts.

Watch it:

McConnell’s comments are part of an orchestrated Republican effort to “scare House Democrats against voting for the health care plan, arguing that there’s no guarantee that the Senate approves a reconciliation package.” On CNBC, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) mused that “once they pass the great big bill, I wouldn’t be surprised if the White House didn’t care if reconciliation passed. I mean, why would they?” In an interview on Fred Thompson’s radio show, Gregg also suggested that reconciliation was “almost irrelevant.”

Republicans have said that they will try to delay the reconciliation process by overwhelming the senate with amendments and invoking “the Byrd rule to ask the parliamentarian to strip individual provisions.” Still, Republicans are uncertain that this strategy will succeed. “There will be a lot of Democrats who will vote against it. Whether there will be 11 Democrats who will vote against it is not clear,” McConnell admitted last week.

Mitt Romney continued to praise Massachusetts’ health care reforms this Sunday, telling Fox News Sundays’ Chris Wallace, “I think our plan is working well. And perhaps the best thing I can say about it, it’s saving lives. It is the ultimate pro-life effort,” Romney said, “people who otherwise could have lost their lives are now able to get the kind of care they deserve”:

ROMNEY: One of the members of my administration told me two days ago, after she left our administration, she was diagnosed with brain cancer. And that had she not been in Massachusetts, she would not have been able to receive the insurance that she needed and the specialist care that has now saved her life. That is the biggest reason for helping people get insurance.

Romney also highlighted his support for the individual health insurance mandate and described the Massachusetts reform as “the ultimate conservative plan.” “We said people have to take responsibility for getting insurance if they can afford it or paying their own way. No more free riders.” Watch it:

Indeed, Massachusetts enjoys the lowest uninsurance rate in the country and requires insurance issuers to offer comprehensive benefits to their beneficiaries. Uninsured residents below 300% of the federal poverty level can participate in the state-subsidized Commonwealth Care program where members get health services by enrolling in health plans which cover a comprehensive package of benefits like “doctor’s visits, surgery, radiology and lab” and abortion services — a procedure Romney says he now opposes.

Moreover, when Wallace hinted that Romney’s support for the Massachusetts plan could also apply to the very similar Senate health care bill, Romney explained that unlike the Senate bill, his plan did little to control costs or cut Medicare spending. “A big difference. state plan versus a federal plan. No new taxes, unlike his plan. No cut in medicare, unlike his plan and no controls over insurance premiums, price controls, cost controls like his plan,” he said.

For a chart comparing the similarities between the Senate and Massachusetts health care reform plans, click here.