You know, I find the following exchange between Ed Schultz and Tom Harkin to be a bit troubling:
SCHULTZ: But why do I sense a “yes” out of you? If it were to come to the floor, you would vote yes for the public option, would you not?
HARKIN: Ed, I’ll tell you this straightforward. Not if it meant that it would sink the whole health care reform bill.
There’s a lot of other stuff in there I care very deeply about — getting rid of all of these pre-existing conditions, insurance rescinding these things, covering 30 million people, giving tax credits to low income so they can buy insurance, getting more competition out there. These are very important things to have for our country, and so I have to weigh all of that.
And if we have a bill sent to us from the House, a reconciliation bill that does not have the public option in there, then if we were to do that, if we were to add it here, that would sink the whole bill. And I don’t want to sink this bill. I want to get this bill passed. I want it on Obama’s desk and have him sign it.
SCHULTZ: Yes. We all do, Senator. But if it were just a single issue and a single reconciliation attempt at a public option, you would vote for that, wouldn’t you?
HARKIN: Ed, not if it doomed the entire bill.
First of all, this presumes that the reconciliation bill would be passed first in the House, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. I believe the Senate could act first. But, secondly, the House has already passed a bill with a public option. If they pass the current Senate bill which doesn’t have a public option, and then they are presented with a reconciliation bill (or an amendment to the bill they passed in the House), they shouldn’t have a big problem with it.
I guess what I’m asking Harkin is what the source of the doom would be in this scenario. I agree that we shouldn’t take an all or nothing approach and that we don’t want to set up a process that fails. But he shouldn’t blame the House for what appears to be a problem in the Senate.
And Harkin was Mr. “We’ve got 52 votes for the public option.” before the Senate passed its bill Christmas Eve. And said so on The Ed Show.
To pass the Senate bill, we’re going to need Blue Dog support in the House. Then to pass the reconciliation bill in the House, their votes are going to be needed again. This means no PO in the base bill.
Once it gets to the Senate, the only way the PO gets in is by amendment. And we don’t have the votes for it.
People keep thinking that it’s easy but it isn’t. There are many wheels at work that all have to turn to get it done. As things stand now, the PO makes it harder to make all the wheels turn. Harkin is exactly right.
It really is easy. A phantom bill is scarier that a bill that is passed. The fact that conservative Dems vote en masse for a bill gives it optics of being “acceptable”. As long as individual Dems are holding out because they are scared of their districts, the bill looks scary. They should go hold hands, take a running leap, jump and pass the bill with unanimous Democratic votes in the House and the Senate. And the same with any reconciliation amendments.
The public thinks “If they’re scared to vote for it, it must be scary.”
In fact, it is a solid Republican bill that Democrats are afraid to pass because it might be too far to the left. Huh!?
I think what he means is that they ‘had’ 50 votes in the senate for a PO, so long as no one ever had to vote for it. In other words, that was all BS. And now, they all want to cover for their collegues(and themselves) because they don’t want to have to actually cast a vote on it.
According to Chris Bowers, the plan is for the House to pass the Senate, Obama to sign said bill, and then for the reconciliation to pass the Senate. I cannot imagine why Pelosi would agree to such a thing, as it seems a setup to have the fix fail and the Senate bill to become law as is. Can anyone here confirm or deny that Obama intends to sign the bill before the fix is passed? Anyone know a rationale for doing such a thing, other than to screw the base and the public once more by imposing the pure Senate bill? At the least, Obama has promised to take out the special deals for specific states, and he needs the fix to do that. And, yes, I asked about this at Openleft too.
The Senate is going to leave the House holding the bag.
According to David Waldman (Congress Matters), Obama does not have to sign the bill but it needs to be in process for his signature. But Waldman also says that the Senate can amend the bill it has already passed in accordance with House specifications and let the House pass the reconciled Senate bill. Alternatively, the Senate can pass the House bill in reconciliation allowing the parts that do not meet the Byrd amendment to stripped out for passage later.
The situation right now is that it appears that the House does not have the votes to close the deal because of scared House members up for re-election and Bart Stupak’s extortion of an abortion ban on private insurance plans.
because it takes all the teeth out of the Republicans’ argument that we’re ramming home the bill. First we pass it without reconciliation, have a signing ceremony, pat each other on the back, and then we fix the bill using reconciliation. The fixes aren’t the problem for the Republicans, it’s the subsidies for tens of millions poor and lower middle class people.
That fix using reconciliation has to happen before the new budget authorization is passed. Or the budget authorization must permit reconciliation for healthcare. At least, that’s what those who seem to know tell me. And my guess is that’s what’s putting the “pass before Easter” emphasis on it.
If so, it’s a bad move. There is tremendous mistrust within the caucus for reason. The Repubs will spew whatever rhetoric they want regardless of the facts, and the public is not going to follow process issues closely enough to attach any significance to these sort of distinctions.
You’d think they could just have a big caucus meeting and see how many votes are in play. These Reps should not be allowed to keep their cards close to their vest anymore. How many votes is Stupak going to take away? How many votes would a public option take away (or add)? How many Dems have simply chickened out because of Scott Brown?
Get the damn numbers and then find out how many elbows you have to twist.