Wed
Feb 3 2010
07:22 am
Reconciliation Resurfacing (with Constitutionality update)
By: EricLykins

Just go ahead and take break before you get into all this:

Update: Budget Reconciliation and the Constitution
Spread the word, and don't let Republican desperation drive the debate.



continued...
First of all, some of the Democratic Senators previously opposed to the reconciliation process are warming up to how it's shaping up, which is looking similar to this. Current Senate Parliamentarian (the guy presiding over the Senate when the Vice President doesn't have to which is almost always) Alan Frumin says to watch your steps. Former Parliamentarian Bob Dove says to watch Alan Frumin.
The Plan:
First, the House takes a shot at the insurance companies with a small bill:

Under the current antitrust exemption, the onus for regulating insurance industry practices has fallen to the states — which often lack the resources to go after offenders — and creates a patchwork of 50 different state regulatory regimes with inconsistent enforcement, supporters of the bill say.

It’s an appealing target for House Democrats, and it would be hard for Republicans to obstruct without facing charges that they were trying to protect insurance companies.

There would surely be other provisions, but they have to reduce the deficit to be eligible for the reconciliation process. Repealing the exemption from Federal laws prohibiting price fixing and bid rigging would drive down health care costs which are a significant portion of the federal budget. What else is going in there?

This bill would then be passed in the Senate through the reconciliation process with 51 votes. The idea that passing cost control measures that were not in the original Senate bill will whip up enough votes for the House to pass that larger, "fairly centrist" bill already passed in the Senate which House progressives have previously said they would vote against as is. They're going to have to get something first.

There's a bunch of crazy talk already starting up again about what could happen in order to get this done or stop it. Settle down, and try not to worry too much when you start hearing about vote-a-rama:

In recent years, the Chair and Ranking Member of the Budget Committee have worked together to minimize the duration of the stacked votes at the end of the consideration of the budget resolution.

Oh wait, the Ranking Member of the Budget Committee is Judd “We would make it an extraordinarily difficult exercise” Gregg. Thanks for continuing to liberally make a mockery of our deteriorating Democratic process, Senator. (BTW, Gregg is retiring this year, and the lead Democrat looks pretty weak. Still looking for names of people who who would make good Senators...

Topics:
Virgil Proudfoot's picture

Stick a fork in it. It's dead.

Submitted by Virgil Proudfoot on Wed, 2010/02/03 - 3:10pm.

The Dems--at least in the Senate--never really wanted to do healthcare reform at all. Neither did the Obama administration. That's why they've slow-walked it, removed all the popular elements (public option, Medicare buy-in), and waited till it lost majority public support. Now, with the Rep U.S. Senate win in Massachusetts, they can say, "Can't do it now, and besides it's not popular." The Senate pretends to have a stalemate with the House, and Obama pretends to still support it, although he does nothing to move it along.

Healthcare reform is dead, at least at the national level. It's time to look to the states, where single payer just cleared the California senate for the third time. It's passed both houses there twice before, only to be vetoed by Governor Terminator. If they can get Jerry Brown or some other Dem in the governor's chair, then something might happen--that is, of course, if the Dems in Sacramento are willing to pass single payer when they know it won't be vetoed!

EricLykins's picture

Washington being Washington

Submitted by EricLykins on Thu, 2010/02/04 - 1:25pm.

With the exception of Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” which alienated independent voters and came to symbolize an out-of-touch Washington, none of the other narrow provisions that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid inserted into the bill appear to be in any kind of danger as Democrats try to figure out the way ahead.

States? I think Tennessee tried that. Without national reform starting with eliminating the antitrust exemption (and as you go down the list you find things are pretty interconnected - can't do one without the other kind of thing) costs aren't coming down or "bending."

I'm still looking for names of people that would make good Senators. Don't make me go all "Lykins 2012" on you people. It would be silly. Keep my confidence. I am the typical "open to something drastic" type of voter (typically non-voter) that has only recently identified and attempted to speak to Democrats just because I saw the first hope of an organization that actually might get something productive done.

Herd your cats and don't let us down

EricLykins's picture

Hold that fork, Stick

Submitted by EricLykins on Thu, 2010/02/11 - 5:37am.

Naw, it's on, kid What we didn't get for Christmas may have an Easter resurrection.

EricLykins's picture

Worldwide media fail

Submitted by EricLykins on Wed, 2010/03/03 - 3:01am.

Financial Times, today: "By Easter it should be clear whether his presidency can rise again."

Those English speaking foreigners obviously don't understand the Obama Congressional Deadline Jinx. The "conference report-style compromises" (such as repealing the Cornhusker kickback)** will originate in the House Ways and Means Committee chaired by Charles Rangel who is currently kind of busy although reports of his demise have greatly been exaggerated. Please hold.

**It would be nice to have the language of the "fix" to the Senate bill to show people to what exactly Republicans are referring when they say "And if they try to go through reconciliation...it's all going to be about repealing the bill. That's not the kind of discussion that they want," when the reconciliation part of the story involves a simple discussion with clear intentions.

Representatives in the House represent the interests of the people and Senators represent the interests of the states. The House passed a health care bill. The Senate passed a health care bill. The two chambers could not reconcile the differences between your interests and state interests, possibly due in part to a bit of corporate geography. The people's House is offering to skip those negotiations, approve the more conservative bill of the House of Lords and pass it on to the President to sign into law. Then, in a separate and small bill which will undergo a strict process that enables a filibuster proof majority vote, offer some deficit reducing measures that (most of which, such as repealing the Cornhusker Kickback), would make a Republican voting against look completely ridiculous
You can't have Boehner make fun of the President's 11 page plan to mop up some differences between the interests of the House and Senate while the B-squad comes behind to say that he's trying to take over the entire system through a parliamentary loophole, FF'sS.

Am I missing anything? A lot of people still have this completely wrong, but you can sometimes follow bad information around to see what "news" eats. At the end of the day, Bob Scheiffer goes into an interview with Kent Conrad with some bad morning info from Politico via Greg Sargent (link...), Kent tries to explain, gets rather disoriented himself, and both men's heads nearly explode for going so far off script.

Meanwhile, Republicans

It’s understandable that they would be taking this approach. But there’s really no excuse for reporters to be confused by it. Their job is to know what’s actually true and explain it to their audience. Right?

EricLykins's picture

Meanwhile-R

Submitted by EricLykins on Thu, 2010/03/04 - 2:46am.

Now, this is just funny

In a display of chutzpah extreme even by modern conservative standards, Sam Stein reports that Republicans have begun a campaign to "cast doubt" on the impartiality of Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin. Why is this so brazen? Because they're the ones who hired him in the first place:

“I think most people don’t trust him,” said a senior GOP official who regularly works with the parliamentarian."

from the "watch Alan Frumin" link above:

Robert Dove: His name is Alan Frumin, he was appointed as an assistant parliamentarian in 1977. He’s very knowledgeable, he’s basically a straight shooter, and he calls them like he sees them. He’s not a partisan official, and I would expect him to be fairly strict in using the rules of reconciliation. I know his view of the use of reconciliation for things that it was not designed for, and I can assure you it was not designed to implement a health-care reform bill. He was the parliamentarian in 1993 and 1994 who argued with the Budget Committee against using it, and he was successful then.

Virgil Proudfoot's picture

The public option will be the Dems' base pander

Submitted by Virgil Proudfoot on Wed, 2010/03/03 - 7:51am.

Well, it looks like the Dems might very well pass this Rube Goldberg-like bill through both houses, minus a very doable public option.

In the future, they'll probably hold the public option out to get Democratic base voters on board for re-election donations, like the Reps always hold out a total ban on abortion to their base voters--never to be fully implemented.

Once safely re-elected, both branches of the party of capital will revert to the service of their real constituencies--Wall Street and the inscos.

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