Reply #96: Ah ... I've heard this arguement before. So let's review ...

[JoePhilly]

The original Bill passed the House, H.R.3590 in Sept 2009. No PO.

The Senate passed HR 3590 with 60 votes in Dec 2009, with Amendments ... which means the House has to deal with those amendments.

Bottom line ... If there was a PO in HR 3590, Lieberman would not have allowed a cloture vote in the Senate. And it does not pass. There would be no need to discuss reconciliation because it would not have been possible.

So the House begins to deal with the Amendments to their original bill.

They introduced H.R. 4872 by John Spratt (D-SC) on March 17, 2010

House agreed to Senate amendment to HR 3590 on March 21, 2010 (219–212)
HR 4872 Passed the House on March 21, 2010 (243-173)

HR 4872 - Passed the Senate on March 25, 2010 (56–43) with (minor) amendment
HR 4872 - House agreed to Senate amendment on March 25, 2010

4872 is Signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 30, 2010, which also carries the ACA into law.

Now, the key dates in the time line above are Dec 24th 2009, and March 21st. In Dec 2009, Lieberman could block cloture and there is no bill to "reconcile".

My bet is that you think the House Dems could have slipped the PO into HR 4872, and the Dems in the Senate would only need a simple majority.

But, if you look at the votes of March 21st, you can see that the House barely passes 3590, and the Senate barely passes 4872 ... why?

Because the Nancy and Harry had already counted the votes regarding what else the could push into 4872. If 4872 had the PO in it, the House blue dogs were not going to pass the amended version of 3590. And similarly, senate blue dogs were not going to pass 4872, if a major addition like the PO was added in a back door maneuver.

But again, most of this is moot. The Senate does not pass any version of HR 3590 with a PO in Dec 2009, Lieberman would have joined the GOP and blocked a vote. And of course, at that time, Ted Kennedy has died, there is a dem replacement in his seat, but the special election is about to occur.