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Barack Obama  |
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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
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reconciliation
Tue Sep 01, 2009 at 10:01:31 AM MST
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With Max Baucus pledging to move forward on health insurance reform with or without Republican backing, the GOP may have backed itself into an interesting corner.
The strange thing about all of this negotiating has always been, for me, that the rules of the Senate actually allow for far better (and more progressive) reform with fewer votes, although you may end up having to lose some good ideas along the way. The reconciliation process, for example, actually requires a stronger public option over a weaker one, in order to get the cost savings that can justify using the reconciliation process.
In other words, the main thing the teabaggers and GOP leadership are gaining by forcing people like Grassley out of the process is a good chance that whatever passes will be even more progressive.
That also means that people like Lieberman who have threatened to oppose any bill with a public option may have some incentive now to agree to vote against a filibuster to support a bill that could include health insurance exchanges, meaningful insurance regulation, etc., as well as a weaker public option, in favor of ending up with a bill lacking exchanges but containing a Medicare-like public option.
If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. The right-wing has apparently opted for being on the menu.
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Sat Apr 25, 2009 at 15:30:59 PM MST
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Good news in the U.S. Senate, where an agreement has been reached to keep reconciliation available as an option on health care reform.The aggressive approach reflects the big political claim that President Obama is staking on health care, and with it his willingness to face Republican wrath in order to guarantee that the Democrats, with their substantial majority in the Senate, could not be thwarted by minority tactics.
While some Democratic senators were reluctant to embrace the arrangement, Mr. Obama made clear at a White House session on Thursday afternoon that he favored it, people with knowledge of the session said. The reason for the reluctance is understandable. Reconciliation is not an ideal process and the Republicans are pledging holy war over the use of this tactic (such pledges are, of course, way ironic because Republicans have also used reconciliation for major policy changes).
That said, taking reconciliation off the table would be absolutely foolish. Former President Clinton said it was his biggest mistake. And taking reconciliation off the table leaves Republicans able to kill any reform bill simply by holding strong -- and they have every political incentive to kill reform.
Here's what our senior Senator had to say (in the NYT article linked above) Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, said Friday that he would prefer not to pursue health legislation through the reconciliation process.
"I think it gets in the way," Mr. Baucus said, explaining that his goal was to produce a health care bill that could "get significantly more than 60 votes."
"If we jam something down somebody's throat, it's not sustainable," he said. Here's the good news for Republicans. The Senator responsible for writing the bill is wisely trying to avoid using the reconciliation process, take a broad array of input, and write a bill that can get bipartisan backing. But the Republicans can't just stonewall now, nor can they hold hostage a process and a bill demanding massive concessions that would render the bill worthless.
It is important that Republicans not be allowed to run amok on health care, especially considering their treatment of Kathleen Sebelius, the moderate Governor of Kansas nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services. The fact that Republican Senators are proposing filibustering Sebelius is another sign of how crazy the modern GOP has become. Sebelius only got two Republican votes on the Finance Committee -- a Senator from her home state of Kansas (where Sebelius is quite popular) and Olympia Snowe, the Senate Republicans' only true moderate.
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Thu Apr 23, 2009 at 09:48:33 AM MST
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One of the big things that Ezra Klein emphasized last night (in addition to the fact that healthcare reform is nowhere near a done deal) is that Republicans really have little incentive to compromise or operate in good faith and every incentive to obstruct, block, and filibuster when it comes to healthcare reform.
If healthcare reform passes, Democrats will likely be heroes. If it fails, President Obama will have failed on one of his biggest promises. That means that Republicans are looking for, as Rush Limbaugh would say, failure.
The good news is that there is a process, albeit not an ideal one, to prevent obstruction. It is called budget reconciliation and even just keeping it on the table will go a long way toward changing the incentives. If Democrats don't need Republican votes to pass healthcare reform, Republicans will have more incentive to try to be involved instead of just filibustering.
I just talked to Jon Tester's office and he has not taken a position on reconciliation, so consider this my effort to encourage people to contact Senator Tester and encourage him to support the reconciliation process.
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