Reconciliation Day is Coming
[Guest post by DRJ]
Politico reports that the Democrats’ push for health care legislation and reconciliation will begin next week:
“After a brief period of consultation following the White House health reform summit, congressional Democrats plan to begin making the case next week for a massive, Democrats-only health care plan, party strategists told POLITICO.
A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to “give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.”
I’ve decided boredom, not gridlock, is the worst thing about government. If it weren’t such a bad bill, reconciliation would be a welcome change from the boredom of listening to Obama’s lectures.
— DRJ
I don’t think they’re serious about this at all, but I would love to see them ram this through, and then watch their Congressional majorities implode almost immediately afterward.
Dmac (799abd) — 2/25/2010 @ 3:37 pmThis kind of proves that this farce today was nothing but political theatre, and that bipartisanship to these people means BOHICA.
JD (b537f4) — 2/25/2010 @ 4:01 pmOnly if they have a death wish and want every democrat running in Nov to lose and lose big, local to national.
Scrapiron (996c34) — 2/25/2010 @ 4:01 pmBest Argument for Nationalized Dental Care I ever saw…Henry Waxman’s Teeth..
And whats the big deal about wearing a dead relatives dentures??? Long as there autoclaved properly no reason for em to be sittin in a landfill somewhere adding to the Global Warming…
A good set of Chompers will last longer than the pyramids…I wear some of my dead grandfather’s suits (we’re the same size) no sense lettin a nice Brooks Brothers go to waste.
And who let Charley Rangel through security?? Guy STILL hasn’t paid his taxes.
Frank, M.D.
Frank Drackman (7ee2ca) — 2/25/2010 @ 4:02 pmGiven Obama’s closing remarks, I see that happening. According to him, if an agreement can’t be reached it’s balls to the wall and let the elections sort it out.
bizjetmech (022d42) — 2/25/2010 @ 4:14 pmHe threw the blue dogs and any other concerned dems under the bus for his socialist agenda.
It’ll be interesting to see how the dems vote…..
it’ll be interesting to see how people vote in November, and, more importantly what they tell their reps over the next few weeks….and the results of said reps listening or not. how many politicians are willing to commit career suicide over the subject, given the colossally bad numbers this plan has?
i don’t think this will be any where near as popular as they think it is, but it will certainly be polarizing. nice of Ear Leader to paint himself into a corner this early into his four years.
it’s hysterical that he’s already planning on running for re-election. my guess is that he just wants to raise the money so he’s set for life, like any other tin horn dictator.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 2/25/2010 @ 4:21 pmAre you guys nuts? When, and not if, Obama and the Dems pass HCR w/ a PO, they’re going to be heroes and November is just going to bring more pain to the tighty righties and their obstructionist strategy now backfiring on them and backing them into a corner.
You guys really have no idea what’s happening here do you?
Oh man…wake up people or get hit by a truck called, Barack Obama.
Assclown doodyheads (f0d390) — 2/25/2010 @ 4:36 pmBig Zero says “elections have consequences”. They do, and many Americans are fast realizing they’ve been gamed by the DNC and the MSM.
Personally, I look forward to the consequences this November will usher in.
GeneralMalaise (c58b20) — 2/25/2010 @ 4:39 pmWell, if one over reaches on one thing, then why not more. Some are saying there will be a six week process before they go for recon. No reason, if they had the votes, they couldn’t do it at just about any day. But it might give them time to bring the cap-and-trade bill and immigration up and use the same ploy “majority”, et al, and just put all of them in one recon bill. I mean does it really make sense to not include other unpopular things sooner than later then spend a few months spinning, lying and deceiving? After all, they are the modern Democrat Party.
cedarhill (6c4d1b) — 2/25/2010 @ 4:56 pmYou guys really have no idea what’s happening here do you?
Projection is thy middle name.
Dmac (799abd) — 2/25/2010 @ 5:21 pmReconciliation? Is Harry Reid aware of this?
In his opener, Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.) was much more aggressive and scolding in tone than Obama, Alexander, or Pelosi. He also said two things that are ridiculous:
“No one is talking about reconciliation,” …except the 20-plus Senators and 100-plus House members who have signed letters advocating its use.
Heh.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 2/25/2010 @ 5:29 pmBefore they start to go the reconciliation route they should realize that the Republicans who replace them in the next election will go by those same rules. One way or the other the genii will be put back in its bottle.
They may think they are voting on health care but they are actually deciding just how irrelevant they want to be in the near future.
Voluble (1e2a18) — 2/25/2010 @ 8:19 pmSomeone made an excellent point, above, and it speaks to the target audience for today’s stage play. If they had the votes to go reconciliation, or to pass either the House or the Senate version, they would do so. That they have not suggests they cannot. Why would they wait since August or September, the original deadlines, and now wait another 4-6 weeks, if they had the votes to pass it?
JD (b537f4) — 2/25/2010 @ 8:24 pmWhat makes anyone think reconciliation will succeed? The House barely passed a bill last time, they dislike the Senate bill and they fear for their jobs. Even assuming that Pelosi gets the votes, there are a dozen Democrat Senate seats in play this November. Maybe Boxer won’t care, but some will.
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 2/26/2010 @ 3:49 amAnything’s possible. These people can spend trillions, and that means they can get votes if they really want them. Some of these democrats might realize they have no chance in November and do what it takes, Obama Rezko+Michelle Obama’s BS Job style, to trade a vote for a nice slice of the pork pie. How many of those jobs can be set up? Enough.
Right now, some democrat house members resemble a cornered animal.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 2/26/2010 @ 4:32 am“Someone made an excellent point, above, and it speaks to the target audience for today’s stage play. If they had the votes to go reconciliation, or to pass either the House or the Senate version, they would do so. That they have not suggests they cannot. Why would they wait since August or September, the original deadlines, and now wait another 4-6 weeks, if they had the votes to pass it?”
I think they genuinely were trying to do this without reconciliation, in part because some of the things they wanted to do couldn’t happen with reconciliation. And they did succeed at that — passing a big bill with 60 votes. So now what’s left for reconciliation is actually not that big, just changes to that.
I thought they should have been moving two bills all along, to have more negotiating power and more freedom to move items between the bills.
As to why it takes time, well golly gee, who could have thought that it takes time to make things happen in the senate.
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
imdw (bb4edc) — 2/26/2010 @ 5:22 amI agree with imdw in this sense: Obama and/or the Dem leadership have been repeatedly mistaken in moving these huge bills rather than smaller more modest reforms.
In a large bill, anyone can always find some horror that they oppose and they won’t support it no matter what else is in it. If the idea was to eliminate the “pre-existing condition” barrier to obtaining insurance, that could have been handled directly — you don’t need to restructure 1/6th of the economy to get there. Same for a low-cost basic policy. Same for a lot of things.
But no. They had to have the kitchen sink and the boat anchor as well. So now we have the following choice: do we toss out the baby with the bathwater, or do we drown the baby in it?
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 2/26/2010 @ 8:45 am“If the idea was to eliminate the “pre-existing condition” barrier to obtaining insurance, that could have been handled directly — you don’t need to restructure 1/6th of the economy to get there.”
Actually you have to do a lot to make this work. You can’t just eliminate this barrier. You have to increase the risk pools. So that requires a mandate. With a mandate, you have to provide subsidies or lower costs, so that requires the tax aspect here, and other cost saving measures like the public option, exchanges and plan standardization for competition, etc…. You can’t just pass the pre-existing exclusion ban without those other parts.
I mean, you can, but it doesn’t make much policy sense and leads to a pretty awful result. But this doesn’t seem to stop the talking point ‘start over’ ‘step by step’ parade.
imdw (688568) — 2/26/2010 @ 8:51 amNo mandate is required: you just need an assigned risk pool. OF course, I didn’t say it would be CHEAP! Why should it be cheap to insure, say, a Dick Cheney? But insurance would be available.
Or perhaps you think “insurance” means “someone else pays”?
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 2/26/2010 @ 10:55 am“No mandate is required: you just need an assigned risk pool.”
So that would have to come too.
“OF course, I didn’t say it would be CHEAP! ”
That’s what I meant when I said “it doesn’t make much policy sense and leads to a pretty awful result.”
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
imdw (33ae78) — 2/26/2010 @ 11:34 am