If You Want Health Reform, Reconciliation Must Be On the Table
The debate over the use of the “budget reconciliation” process has taken on a weirdly circular quality. On the one hand, folks say that going through reconciliation will wreck the chances of Republican cooperation. On the other hand, reconciliation proponents maintain that if Republicans would do more cooperating there’d be no need for talk of reconciliation. Meanwhile, the key moderate Democrats who hold the balance of power in the Senate have shown a tendency to twist in the wind on this.
But with the Senate GOP acting yesterday to block a vote on Kathleen Sebelius’ confirmation on the grounds that she’s pro-choice, it’s time for a little Real Talk. There’s no indication that Republicans have any serious desire to cooperate on a serious health care reform bill. Instead, they seem to be interested in using the carrot of cooperation as a way to get Democrats to unilaterally abjure procedural methods and revenue sources that would make reform possible.
Igor Volsky surveys the record:
Of course, if you don’t give, you’re not gonna get and Republicans have shown only limited willingness to cooperate with Democrats on health care reform. Key Republicans voted against the popular SCHIP legislation, eight Republican senators (including health care heavy weights Grassely and Hatch) voted against Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination to head the Department of Health and Human Service, Republicans misrepresented the intent of health information technology and comparative effectiveness research in the stimulus, encouraged smear groups to lie about CER and health IT, invited Easter special Sally Pipes to testify about health care reform, and have already taken the public option off the table.
Bipartisan outreach is, at times, a necessity. When the same party controls concurrent majorities in both houses of congress and the White House and is discussing an issue that’s eligible for reconciliation treatment, it is not a necessity. It’s a tactical option. But it’s just that—a tactical option, not a first-order concern of substantive policy.
What I worry is that there are a certain number of Democrats who, deep down, just join their Republican colleagues in not wanting to see health care reformed. But they don’t want to say that. So they may first block efforts to prevent the GOP from blocking reform, and then let the GOP block reform, all the while posing as reformers. Keep your eyes open.
17 Responses to “If You Want Health Reform, Reconciliation Must Be On the Table”
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April 24th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Dude, I so wish I could get paid to do the kind of “deep thinking” and “subtle analysis” represented by that post.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Are you willing to name names? Or at least discuss past votes that would be consistent with a quiet opposition to reform.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:29 am
It doesn’t matter quite as much as the failure to fully staff the rest of HHS, but boy, has this HHS secretary position been star-crossed. I wonder if the Obama administration would have dissed Daschle so quickly if it realized that likeable, moderate Kathleen Sebelius 1) had failed to pay all of her taxes and 2) had taken tens of thousands of dollars from the really strangely wealthy late-term abortion doctor George Tiller, who’s become infamous with Republicans.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Well, the news is reporting that a South Carolina woman has discovered the face of Jesus on a cheese sandwich she toasted — so maybe we should ask the Republicans leaders to pray to the cheese sandwich for guidance on how to resolve this dispute.
http://gmy.news.yahoo.com/v/13132457
April 24th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I myself think Mitch McConnell should go to one of those Pentacostal Churchs in Kentucky, pick up a big fucking rattler and ask the snake what he should do. I’ll bet when the snake speaks it will sound just like Tom Delay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_handling
April 24th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Are these people doing drugs?
And if so, can I get some?
April 24th, 2009 at 10:11 am
This just in from Fox:
Paragliding POLICE as a crime fighting measure. Plus the omen of that paragliding guy getting hung up on the Statue of Liberty just before Sept 11, 2001. Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?
Meanwhile:
“This South Carolina woman has a SPIRTUAL LINK to her toasted cheese sandwich…”
April 24th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Is it just me, or is that a weird use of the phrase “twist in the wind?”
April 24th, 2009 at 10:42 am
This is some cheesy snark today. Me, I am full of foreboding. I’m afraid that single-payer and card check are going down the tubes. My best hope is that Barak is going to put his muscle into one big issue. I pray it’s healthcare.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:46 am
I am actually starting to believe this is getting to the point that the filibuster itself may be in jeopardy. If the Republicans seriously carry through on their threat to filibuster every nominee for everything unless they get their way on health care, that may well be the end of the filibuster.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:23 am
At the very least, both Obama and the Congressional leaders need to be very pointed in telling that the reconciliation is not of the table, and could be considered. It’s a hanging threat, sort of like how DeLay would threaten back in 2004-2005 to eliminate the filibuster on judicial nominees.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
The best hope for health care reform is that the american business community will realize that heaalthcare costs and its attachment to employment are making it difficult for them to stay competitive world wide, and to use their power to offset insuranc ecompany power to impede reform.
as for congressional use of reconciliation and fillibuster, I beleive that these parlaimentary procedures are less important to us than actually achieving healthcare reform, and I would be willing to accept any solution (as long as it were applied no matter which party controlled the senate) as long as the solution comes AFTER healthcare reform, real reform, is achieved. No compromises can be made until there is a specific reform plan that can be traded for compromise.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Fox News provides more of what the old Romans called “Omens and Portents”:
“Pregnant Woman Hit by Car While Fleeing From Bear”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517696,00.html
————-
ha ha ha. Julius Caesar would have LOVED this fucking country.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Re: What I worry is that there are a certain number of Democrats who, deep down, just join their Republican colleagues in not wanting to see health care reformed.
Why? Everyone, including the GOP (whether they admit it or not) knows that healthcare MUST be reformed, that the current system has hit a brick wall and cannot continue. Even the insurance companies are there. Sure there’s a lot of disagreement on the direction of the reform, but no disagreement on the need to change.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Not just you. It is a complete misuse. It implies that others have left them to take some punishment.
Blow with the wind would be better
April 24th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
It looks to me like the Democrats are ready to use Reconciliation for health reform. In my opinion, this is very smart.
The Dems need to show that they are willing to cut the Republicans out of the process entirely if they aren’t willing to contribute constructively. If Dems to do this, we might see a real about-face among the Republicans. They’ll be stuck in a situation where they’re forced to choose between no power and less power than they feel entitled to. I guarantee they’ll favor the latter over the former.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
[...] be making empty promises of cooperation in an attempt to convince Democrats like Conrad to “unilaterally abjure procedural methods and revenue sources that would make reform [...]