Getting to Yes
The top line takeaway of this short piece in Newsweek is that a senior Democratic aide says Nancy Pelosi is "way short" of the votes needed to pass the Senate healthcare bill. But reading further, the news is more positive:
The big hang-up is about the Cadillac tax passed by the Senate, which would pay for the full reform package by taxing people with top-shelf health-care plans (as opposed to just taxing the wealthiest Americans, which the House approved in its bill). House Democrats are also uneasy about the Nebraska “Cornhusker Kickback” compromise that initially won over Sen. Ben Nelson....This aide says that unless Senate Democrats will commit to repealing it through reconciliation, Pelosi can’t get to 218.
....For now, senior lawmakers are working the phones furiously to talk up the idea of the Senate promising to retroactively unravel several distasteful components. If House Democrats make the good-faith deal, Pelosi is arguing that the Senate promise would be easy to keep. Reconciliation votes require only a 51-vote majority. Or even 50, in which case Vice President Biden could break the tie.
This aide says that leadership considers reconciliation, with the House conditioning its support on promised fixes in the Senate, as the much more strategic route than breaking the package into parts, which isn’t ideal because all of the parts are interlocking. Asked what the timetable would be for that, this aide says weeks, not months.
Italics mine. This is good news: both that passing the Senate bill along with an agreement to fix specific pieces later via reconciliation is the preferred strategy, as well as the fact that the Democratic leadership is apparently "working the phones furiously" to make it happen. After all, it shouldn't be too hard: a deal on the Cadillac tax was cut over a week ago, and Ben Nelson has already agreed to give up his special deal for Nebraska. If those are the biggest roadblocks, there's really nothing in the way of reaching an agreement to proceed.
Next step: how about actually talking about this stuff in public and making it clear that this is what everyone is working toward? Assuming it actually is, of course.
Comments
I'm still furious
over those many progressive bloggers that took such a cavalier attitude towards the so-called Cadillac tax. Not only do I think there are credible objections to the "merits" of such a tax, it's political poison for quite a few. Literally two days ago Benen, Yglesias, Ezra, et al were saying all that had to be done was have the House pass the Senate bill. I'm torn between calling that attitude pathetic or arrogant.
Now Pelosi is going to try to thread the needle, again. She might pull it off. I'll be watching to see what, if any, effort the White House is putting in to make it a success.
Calling my
Dem senator in the morning. (The other one is too busy paying off his mistress' husband.)
It would indeed be nice if
It would indeed be nice if the Dems were more forthcoming about this. I was at a town hall with Anthony Weiner and Yvette Clarke in Brooklyn today, and there was zero discussion of the excise tax. Weiner grandstanded about how evil the Senate bill was (knowing he'd get applause from his Park Slope crowd) and how Obama wasn't leading, and Clarke berated the base for not being as fired up as the teabaggers.
It shocked both of them when I said "You could have a health care bill on President Obama's desk tomorrow if you just voted for the Senate bill", and got the biggest applause of the afternoon.
Good for you, and for the
Good for you, and for the crowd. And once in place, powerful political pressure can continue and be focused more laser-like on the public option, perhaps forcing majority votes in both House and Senate (through reconciliation) on an amending bill. Maybe a better compromise on the Cadillac tax and subsidies, too. But what it seems like these people get is that it's critical to get the structure and the principle in place first.
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The Newsweek piece is a
The Newsweek piece is a little more worrisome to me. It sounds to me like the house perceives themselves to be in a slightly stronger bargaining position, so now house liberals are pushing to get the excise tax eliminated entirely. Not only would this be bad policy, but it would be a gamble that could get the bill killed.
Huzzah
Nice job, MaximusNYC. Lately, Weiner's been behaving like... well, you know.
Leaving aside for the moment
Leaving aside for the moment how utterly crappy the bill itself is, and how fundamentally unpopular it is with a majority of the electorate, look at it this way: here in New York State, it is now well known that passage of this bill is going to cost the state government $1 billion each year in new Medicaid costs. Meanwhile, Nebraska gets its "benefits" for free, and a handful of other states gets compensation for their extra tab.
Even Schumer has counseled his fellow New York legislators to think before they leap on this one. Why should any of them vote for it?
Due to Democratic silence and
Due to Democratic silence and Republican lying, the public does not have a clue what's in either of the current bills.
That's typical elitist B.S.
That's typical elitist B.S. Sections of the public have swallowed far-right crap whole, certainly. Far larger ones might get a detail or two wrong here and there, but the general gist of the bill is known to them. To us. The mandate is an affront to liberty, the claim that this bill does anything to address the cost problem -- that is doesn't, in fact, blow up the budget that much worse than the current situation -- is ridiculous on its face, and the special favors doled out to individual states were too well publicized for them to ignore the sausage making this time around. It does nothing to address the rampant abuse and overuse of the health care system in this country, which arises from a combination of simple greed on the part of profit-making doctors and hospitals, overcaution by the non-greedy doctors and hospitals because they know the slightest mistake will earn them all multimillion-dollar lawsuits, and the complete absence of any incentive on the part of any segment of the health care system, especially patients, to economize when someone else is always paying the bill (think about it -- under the "insurance" system, even for something like a physical, you pay your employer to pay an insurance company to pay the provider, which is farcical).
It's a lousy bill. On the liberal side, one can hope it passes and then the natural expansion of government will take care of everything else the left wants. On the conservative side, the existing system is set to break completely whether this bill passes or not (probably faster if it does), and they'll be faced with radical reform of one sort or another, none of which they'll like. The only sure thing is that the middle class will pay for it.
Thanks for this, Kevin
It gives me hope that some progressive voices may yet be heard.
Must reconciliation come later?
Must reconciliation come later? I.e. BEFORE asking the house to vote, why doesn't the senate pass (through the reconciliation process) the deal worked out between the house, senate, and WH over the holiday break? If the house dems don't trust the senate dems to deleiver on their promises, then why muck up the process with the burden of good faith? The senate should man up (person up?), put their (negotiated and agreed) promises in writing, and pass the damn thing. THEN, appropriately, the burden will be on the house to get it to the president's desk.
I really think we're all giving the senate dems a big pass by putting the onus on the house.
peace,
dan
Because there will be no reconciliation.
The regime is merely providing them with a prop they can later use to claim that they were fooled, sort of like the 2003 Iraq NIE. Without the promise of "good faith" there can be no betrayal, and without betrayal, the plutocracy can't get its way.
I guess you guys still don't
I guess you guys still don't get it, even after Massachusetts. I'm a liberal Democrat and I support health care reform.. But most voters can see this bill was written by and for insurance companies. Pass it and you hand the government back to Republicans on a silver platter. The individual mandate is anathema to most voters, an onerous tax that will be paid directly to predatory corporations, exactly like the bank bailouts. Insurers will stall on the preexisting condition and lifetime cap provisions until after the next election, betting that any enforcement mechanism will take months, if not years, to set up. So what the American people will see are massive new taxes during a terrible recession and few, if any, benefits in the short term. Now guess what that will mean for Democrats at the polls. Let the bill die, push through a Medicare buy-in and finance it with taxes and fees on the banksters. Admit the insurance industry wrote the bill and repudiate it. Otherwise, Obama will be a one-term President dealing with a Congress full of Tea Baggers.
Without the mandate, it is
Without the mandate, it is impossible to eliminate denial for pre-existing conditions -- the single most important reform is the entire effort. How can people who claim to be following this subject not understand that?
Reconciliation not so easy
For those who continue to think that reconciliation is the easy answer to all legislative problems, this article provides some insight as to why that may not be happening:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/how-reconciliation-would-work
Regards,
Neil
Congress Matters
Google Congress Matters and read the article re Reconciliation. It can be done!
There is only an upside to
There is only an upside to passing the Senate structure-consumer-protections bill now, and then letting political pressure put the public option, tax and subsidies provisions into play. The more people understand what is meant by a public option, the more favorable to it they are. The more Republicans keep focusing attention with interminable amendments to delay a provision that has come to be popular, the more they dig their own graves and raise the stature of Democrats who favor it.
Of course, it would all be helped if Obama and other leading Democrats, and organizations with money to spend, would get off their frightened asses and tell the public in a sustained, systematic way what's actually in this bill and what a public option actually is.
It's wasteful to demand prior commitment to reconciliation vote. Jesus, believe in our own power to make things happen for once.
Passage of Obamacare would
Passage of Obamacare would mean death for the Democratic party when people start experiencing it.
Oh, yes, they are going to be
Oh, yes, they are going to be so pissed when their premiums drop from $1000 per month to $300. The majority will get help -- not always that much but significant.
They will be even more pissed when their insurance companies inform them they aren't subject to lifetime caps any more. Imagine the anger of people with pre-existing conditions who can finally buy insurance at the same cost as those who don't have them!
I just don't trust the Senate.
Honestly, I don't. I've asked my rep to wait till the Senate has passed a reconciliation fixing the funding (no Cadillac Tax) & the Nelson gimmie money provision. Then pass both bills.
Sorry but the Senate has proven itself to have no honor. That being the case, they get no trust.
Not smart. See above. Who
Not smart. See above. Who cares whether the Senate is trustworthy or not? None of them is trustworthy. It's only pressure and force -- money and votes -- that will make things happen. Make the Republicans and Blue Dogs oppose a public option all by itself -- especially one that's so fair it let's each state decide it doesn't want its citizens to have that option when they look for insurance -- and see how they fare. The narrative behind the state opt-out can be overwhelming: it allows states who want it to have it, and those who don't not to have it, and how in common decency, mutual respect and institutional collegiality can a Senator in one state have the audacity to tell the Senator from the other state what his or her citizens can be allowed to do? Under those circumstances, where the public gets to focus on exactly what the public option means and means to them personally, the opponents will one-by-one begin to shut up. If the structure and principle established in the Senate bill is put into place now, a Federally-chartered public option for the exchanges, which would have a favorable budget impact and thus clearly should be subject to a reconciliation process in the Senate, will be voted out of both houses and put on the President's desk by the end of October of this year.
why people Massachusetts were complaining about Ben Nelson
A Democratic operative has a reader note at tpm on why people Massachusetts were complaining about Ben Nelson,
But reporters LIKE to write about the political deal making, rather than the policy issues, so that's what people know.
Finally, this may seem like a harsh attack on political reporters. Well, yeah. It kind of is. Many do good work, but most focus entirely on the game and whose up and down and winning the political contest - they don't take the act of governing or legislating seriously.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/pox_on_the_double-poxe...
Which elides a valid
Which elides a valid complaint -- why it is, exactly, that a piece of Federal legislation, applying new rules, regulations and (most notably) substantial fees on every U.S. citizen, results in taxpayers in the state of New York (among others) footing the Medicaid bill for the state of Nebraska.
The answer, of course, is that it's a simple deal that Senate Democrats made with Ben Nelson. The voters of New York state, via their Representatives in the House, now have the option of rejecting that bargain.
I think a majority of voters _are_ aware of other policy issues, and the fact that the rest of the bill isn't enough to outweigh this basic calculation is telling.
the solution is simple: increase Medicaid for everyone
I would have said the impression that the rest of the bill isn't enough to outweigh this basic calculation is pretty fair evidence most of the people who voted for Brown have no clue at all what's in it.
The Medicaid extension for Nebraska is really trivial in the great scheme of US government spending and the result is a drastic increase in quality of life for millions.
Of course if some still object, the solution is simple: increase Medicaid for everyone.
Please. Please, please,
Please. Please, please, please.
Please use reconciliation to get a health care bill into law. Please let the American people know how desparate liberals and progressives are over HCR. Ram this bill home throught the use of a nice, byzantine legislative function that will give America a public option with out America's legislators ever voting for it.
Yes, you will have your vaunted public option, albeit quite watered down.
But Democrats will pay - dearly - at the 2010 mid-terms. And probably every other national vote for the next decade.
I'd love nothing more to see a public option via reconciliation scuttle the Democratic party for the foreseeable future.
Make it happen, Pelosi.
It seems Macgruber doth
It seems Macgruber doth protect too much!
In other news, more evidence
In other news, more evidence that global warming scientists are brazen liars:
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temper...
Not really a hijack thread, since global warming scientists lie as much, if not more, than most politicians.
I'm confused
I admit that I haven't been following the debate very closely, but there are some things I'm unlear about.
Is the purpose of the "Cadillac tax" to generate revenue, or to motivate people to switch to more modest plans? These goals are obviously in direct opposition to each other.
Would the tax actually generate enough revenue?
I thought the whole idea was that health insurance should be fairly comprehensive.
Great point! That's been
Great point! That's been bothering me, too. Which, of course, would make this a subject for the reconciliation process, since revenue would be impacted by success in one of its policy goals. Remember that the House tax on the rich polls a lot better, so this might be a piece-of-cake amendment.
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