Why are people so enthusiastic about reconciliation?

[BzaDem]

According to Debbie Stabenow on the Senate Finance committee (on the Ed Show), reconciliation would cut out most of the bill. There would be no way to stop pre-existing conditions from being a factor (and no way to enact other insurance reforms). She said she wasn't even sure if any public option could go through reconciliation without being procedurally barred. The only thing she mentioned that she knew would make it are subsidies... for people to purchase private insurance. For those pushing reconciliation, is this really what you wanted? I thought that was exactly what you didn't want.

[TheKentuckian]

1. Because they are understandably desperate to find a way.

Any way other than the very tough work and time line involved to get more Democrats and especially liberals elected. They can't stand the thought of any further delay but pay no mind to what they demand actually entails. I see almost zero point in passing anything of this scope that will sunset so close to start up. The five year window on this makes it pretty meaningless, it is hard to repeal popular programs but to expect popularity and support roughly a year from start up is naive.

People don't want to think in terms of 60 votes because knowing that almost no Republicans can be counted on means that we have (with MA's replacement) just enough on paper to actually do something but that reality dictates it is and always was unlikely to herd cats at a rate of 100% even if no one was bought and paid for or an undercover Republican. Once one wraps their head around that need for 60, even the mildest public option seems like a huge lift.

Rather than face how tall an order is some prefer to find shortcuts around obstacles to use to browbeat and blame.

[Umbral]

2. Let's blame those 'lazy' liberals for not electing, say, 75 or 80 Democrats to the Senate...

Should the Democrats still fail with those kind of numbers, would it then incumbent on liberals to elect 90 or 100 Democratic Senators? I think I see where this is going - blame the constituents for any legislative failures, especially those 'lazy' liberals. There comes a time when that 'D' after a politicians name has to mean something, this is one of them.

[BzaDem]

3. That's where your wrong. A 'D' doesnt have to mean anything, no matter how much you wish it so.

We need 60 'L'. L means liberal, not libertarian. We need 60 'L' in the Senate and 218 'L' in the house. Or at the very least, we need 51 'L' in the Senate and 218 'L' in the house. We currently have neither.

[TayTay]

4. Actually, it doesn't mean that much in our system

All federal offices are independently elected. The President runs on his own. Senators run on their own. House Reps run on their own. They have an affiliation with the Democratic Party, but it is non-binding. We don't have a Parliamentary system like they do in several other countries where a political party is elected and office holders are part of that. Everyone here is an independent responsible to their state or district first.

[TayTay]

5. It's not as dire as she says, but

reconciliation is far from a great way to enact health care reform.

Republicans, btw, used reconciliation to enact the Bush tax cuts in 2001. They ignored the ruling of the parliamentarian and passed it under majority rule 51-49.

[BzaDem]

6. They fired the parliamentarian and got a new one.

And even with the new one, they still had to make the tax cuts expire after 10 years.

However, since then, Democrats have passed rules preventing reconciliation to be used for bills that increase the deficit. We would still need to sunset after 5 years to avoid increasing the deficit after 5 years.

Even if we revoked our own rules (I'm not sure how possible that is) and then fired the parliamentarian, we would need to find a new one from the Senate Parliamentarian's office. I don't think there's any parliamentarian that would allow the insurance regulations through. There might or might not be one that would allow any kind of public option. The tax cut was directly impacting the budget and therefore was much easier to get through on reconciliation.

[TayTay]

10. And Paygo rules were implemented this year

The upshot is that reconciliation is very, very difficult. It could be done, which is what I meant by saying that Sen. Stabenow's words were a bit too dire, but we have to think carefully if we want to do hcr that way.

Whenever that is said, it seems to trigger a reaction in some of "damn the consequences. let's just do it," as if thinking ahead is a crime of some sort. I would very carefully think ahead about using reconciliation and do so as a last resort. The bill almost certainly would have to be cut up into sections in order to get it through the Senate. The current http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/us/for-senate-parliamentarian-great-power-but-a-sensitive-constituency.html?pagewanted=all">Parliamentarian, Alam Frumin, assummed his seat when his predecessor, Bob Dove, was fired by the Republicans in 2001. That office is extremely sensitive to the political winds and the Parliamentarians ruling can be overturned or http://www.slate.com/id/2227092/">ignored by the Chair. (So, if Biden were presiding over the Senate, he could simply ignore an order that says something is not budget-neutral or germane to the budget bill overall.)

Frumin, btw, has already warned that any bill that passes through his office, as any bill of this nature would do, might emerge as a "swiss cheese" bill. That is a big risk we take. We risk mandates without corresponding measures that make insurance more universal and less expensive. I think the risk of that increases under reconciliation.


Congressional Research Service reports on Reconciliation:

http://tinyurl.com/lskqzm">Budget Reconciliation Legislation: Development and Consideration, Aug 2008

http://tinyurl.com/n4dfks">Budget timing for legislative action, Nov 2008

http://tinyurl.com/m5ohgj">Explaining the Byrd Rule and budget neutrality in the Senate, March 08

[backscatter712]

7. Reconciliation is eminently doable.

If we really wanted to be assholes about it, we could take the bill to the parliamentarian. The parliamentarian will advise certain parts of the bill to be non-compliant with the Byrd Rule. Then that advice goes to the person presiding over the Senate, namely Joe Biden, who can, if he so chooses, ignore the advice of the parliamentarian, declare what he wants to be in compliance with the Byrd Rule, no matter how non-sensical, and we can thus shove it through with 51 votes.

It'd be ugly as hell, but we could do it.

Though I suspect the real strategy is that Obama & co. are thinking that public option & subsidies will pass Byrd Rule muster, and the parts that won't are things like insurance company regulation banning discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions and banning rescissions of the sick. The insurance regulation is popular as hell, so we can take that part, and ask for a Byrd Rule waiver, which requires 60 votes, but since things like insurance regulation are very popular, we have a decent chance of getting those votes.

[dionysus]

8. yes, break it up in peices if you have to. just get it done.

[TxRider]

13. It should probably be broken up into pieces anyway...

Break it up into smaller pieces, several bills.

The bigger a bill gets, the more it tries to do, the more enemies it makes.

Breaking it up into separate parts would make most of those parts easier to pass, make for more straight forward debate on each, and only take on a few special interests at a time not all of them at once.

[BzaDem]

9. Your first option is really ending the fillibuster.

It is couched in language such as "waiving the Byrd Rule with only 51 votes," but in reality that is the same way that would end the fillibuster. As much as that would be a good idea from a policy standpoint, it would never happen. Not even progressives would go that far. Not even Bush's Congress went that far.

As for your second option, that might work. It would hinge on Ben Nelson/Joe Lieberman/Olympia Snowe cooperating after reconciliation shut them out. But who knows. It is certainly a huge risk.

[backscatter712]

12. It's our nuclear option.

Chances are we'd threaten to do what I've suggested, which isn't far removed from the GOP asserting that filibusters of federal appointments are unconstitutional, and threatening to have then-VP Cheney rule as such, wiping out the filibuster.

It's something we probably wouldn't pull the trigger on, but threatening to do so could be useful...

[harun]

11. They have a number of options.