Everyone and their brother is telling Democratic House members to pass the Senate version of the health care bill, and progressives like Jerry Nadler are whining about the excise tax. The labor unions and the White House hammered out a deal on the excise tax last week that can be included in a reconciliation bill. If the Labor Unions are okay with it, then why is Nadler still complaining?
Here’s Andy Stern of the SEIU:
Step one: The House should pass the Senate’s health insurance reform bill – with an agreement that it will be fixed, fixed right, and fixed right away through a parallel process.
Reform can work — the Senate bill can serve as the foundation for reform and include at minimum the improvements the Administration, House, and Senate have negotiated. We cannot squander the opportunity to make real progress. The House and Senate must move forward together. And, there is no reason they cannot move forward together to make those changes through any means possible — whether through reconciliation or other pieces of moving legislation.
Some in Washington may want to throw their hands up and walk away; others may call for walking back reform by passing something smaller. So let’s just say it: the Democrats own health reform. They own the votes they already took. And, they own what health reform will stand for. Most importantly, it will be a major achievement the American people need and deserve. There is no turning back. There is no running away. There is no reset button.
It’s like a bunch of progressives got addicted to reading progressive blogs and actually started to believe advocacy equals analysis. When the people you are supposed to represent and the health care experts and the political hands are all telling you to pass the Senate bill and fix it using reconciliation, you convince no one by pretending that you’re sticking up for principle. At best, you’re making a misguided attempt to save your own asses and your own majorities.
Well, when Jane Hamsher is telling you to pass the bill, I don’t know who they’re listening to. The only person I see who doesn’t want them to pass the Senate bill is Armando, but he might be like Jane: will be ok with it if they fix it in reconciliation.
She’s not telling people to pass the Senate bill at all.
Hmmm, must have changed once she didn’t think they could get reconciliation fixes. The last diary of hers that I read was this one:
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/19/martha-coakley-and-sidecar-reconciliation-the-public-opt
ion-lives-again/
she’s actually whipping against the Senate bill at the same time that she’s calling for it to be passed with a sidecar that includes the public option.
LOL sounds like her typical manic-progressivism.
I don’t it either, BooMan. Its like the House has built this self-righteous cocoon around themselves and won’t listen to anyone else but themselves. The cries are only gonna get louder as we near the SOTU address, so they may as well get on with it.
I think the Plsn D actually is
Barney Frank telegraphed this message the night of the Mass election, and though he walked it back a little the next day, I have come to believe now that the congressional democrats actually were looking for an excuse to abandon health care reform because they thought it had become a political albatross.
I don’t get the impression that anyone has the political will anymore to whip the house democrats to pass the Senate bill.
Sigh.
Seriously…at this point, who in the world is telling them NOT to pass the Senate Bill?
Why, all the “Top Democratic Strategists” of course.
And Chris Dodd.
The very principled CountryWide Chris.
TPM has a statement Nadler released today which sounds like he’s not only changed his tune, but is articulating the clearest tactical path yet to getting this done (if the House can get around Stupidpak). Here’s Nadler’s statement:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) issued the following statement on the current status of health care reform in the U.S. Congress:
“As Speaker Pelosi has said, the House of Representatives does not have the votes to pass the Senate health care bill alone. It is clear that the great majority of the House Democratic Caucus – right, left and center – is unwilling to pass the Senate bill as it stands. But we must not let this fact, or the election results in Massachusetts, cause us to abandon comprehensive health care reform.
“We must instead negotiate an agreement with the Senate to pass a few key changes to the Senate bill through the reconciliation process so that both Houses can pass a comprehensive bill. We can then take various popular insurance reforms that cannot be passed through the reconciliation process – dealing with such subjects as pre-existing conditions, rescissions and annual and lifetime benefits – put them in a separate bill, and see if the Republicans dare to filibuster them. The alternatives – giving up on comprehensive reform or attempting to only pass small pieces separately – are either unacceptable or impractical.
“Though the process of crafting and passing health care legislation has been frustrating and disappointing for many of us, we still have a rare opportunity to enact true reform, and we must not give up.”
Looks like someone smacked some sense into him, but they still need to pass the Senate bill to get the pieces in place that can’t be done through reconciliation.
Do you think he’s saying pass the Senate Bill as is and amend it–which was how I originally interpreted it–or do you think he’s saying that the Senate should amend and pass a new Bill after negotiations. There’s a big difference since the Senate isn’t going to pass anything new.
No, he’s clearly saying that the Senate bill will not pass.
Bart Stupak’s digging in his heels and claims he has enough folks to kill it if the Nelson amendment is not changed back to Stupak-Pitts.
So it’s not just progressives in the mix. Remember that with every progressive voting, the House bill passed by only two votes, one of which was Stupak’s.
Latest indications are they can’t get 51 votes in the Senate for reconciliation if the compromise comes through.
It looks like the situation now is ping-pong it as is or else.
But this is a rapidly evolving situation. By the time the “ink is dry” on these reports, it will have changed again.
How many ways can you spell:
D-Y-S-F-U-N-C-T-I-O-N-A-L
Apparently the majority of progressives not only believe that advocacy equals analysis, but also that there is no difference between theoretical analysis and the day-to-day imperative of making the best of whatever situation you happen to be in. (Which requires an ideology-free analysis of that situation.) Theory is a guide but real-world decisions have to be pragmatic.
there is a word for all this: “practical wisdom” (Latin prudentia = Greek phronesis), and it seems to be almost entirely absent from American public life, corporate as well as government. It’s been replaced by a kind of mass bipolar disorder — either the Messiah’s coming is expected shortly, or utter doom is at hand. (Either way, it’s no longer necessary to think.)This applies to the Left just as much as the Right, and in a way it has always defined both of them since their origins in the late 18th century.
I generally agree with your posts, but I’m confused who you’re addressing or what you’re trying to say. Are who’s ears broken? House Democrats? Senate Democrats? Progressive bloggers? These needs more explanation for those of us not up on all the parts of the debate. As far as I know, the Senate has no interest in amending their bill or even promising to, and since without that the bill is unacceptable to unions, I don’t see how we go forward; it has nothing to do with bloggers, progressive or otherwise.
But they have to go forward or November will be a disaster.
The big discussions are about how to go forward, given the Senate intransigence (and not just the majority of 41); reconciliation has not gained 51 Senators as a strategy. There is fear of being called out of forcing a bill through outside of normal order, even though it’s come close to stalemate (with a majority vote) through normal order. And the public knows the Democrats still have 58 votes (skip Lieberman) for something if they have the will to do it.
Every one of them’s ears are broken.
I’m talking to WATB progressives in the House and I’m talking to idiotic ‘moderates’ in the Senate.
When did Rahm Emanuel infect the mainstream Democratic punditry? The House passed a good bill; the Senate did not. Why is the pressure not on the SENATE to make good on the agreements in conference before the Coakley election?
By this I mean that when someone talks about reconciliation or small-chunk legislation, the converstaion-stopping answer is “there aren’t the votes in the Senate for that.” And somehow, this is just accepted, as if there’s no responsibility or accountability for that, no reason to pressure them, no suggestion that they are thwarting reform.
But if the House says “there aren’t the votes in the House for this retrograde Senate bill,” suddenly they’re holding everything hostage. How are hundreds of Congresspeople holding it hostage, instead of 3-5 Senators? Riddle me that one, Batman.
Where we are right now is the Senate refusing a conference agreement to reconcile the fact that they chopped up a much better House bill into nothing. Why exactly isn’t this the Senate’s fault–and thus the pressure on them, rather than the House, which is in fact fighting for better policy AND politics?
The Senate has to agree to do this. You’re right. But we have only one passable vehicle right now, and that’s the Senate bill. Either we use it, or the whole thing goes up in smoke, or we get piecemeal scraps that don’t even make sense.
Van Hollen says the truth is that the Senate never had the 51 votes for reconciliation. The Senate bill is so tarnished now, that it is best for the House not to take it up.
I think he might be covering for Bart Stupak, but I could be wrong and it might only be progressives.
It has been the Senate all along that had problems. And apparently some of those problem children are still hidden.
Let’s see: Lierberman, Nelson (NE), Lincoln, Landrieu, Conrad, Baucus, Bayh, …. tell me four more.
Byrd, possibly Feingold.
Yep, on reconciliation, those two would be an issue. I’m not sure what procedural niceties they would accept however. Byrd at one point made some vague statement about the public option being acceptable in reconciliation (or something — I’m foggy on this).
Feingold, I think, wants his colleagues to put their hands by their sides and slowly step away from the lobbyist money. Denying reconciliation might be tactics rather than a permanent commitment. Dunno.
Lots of folks ducking for cover right now.
I had the feeling when the House passed their bill that Pelosi herded the votes needed to pass and allowed as many as possible who wanted to vote no for a plausible reason to go ahead and do so. In other words, Pelosi was ultra confident that weekend that it would pass; I felt then that the drama of a vote that LOOKED razor-thin was actually a series of deals to allow a substantial number of Dem members to vote no for their own political benefit. If this was true then and to some extent remains true, it may make her job now a little less daunting.
Two of the votes are gone. Wexler retired. And Cao, the only Republican voting yea, will never buck leadership again.
As I looked over who voted for and who voted against, there were few who looked like they would vote differently. The Stupak-Pitts amendment really screwed up the count of supporters.
Because only an idiot would look at the Senate and House as being in equally difficult positions. The necessary number of senators don’t give a shit about passing health care reform. The necessary number of House members do but are holding out for an imaginary better bill that can pass the Senate because they’re morons.
It’s not about failing to recognize that certain key senators are thwarting better reform. What — do you think you’re the only one who ever figured that out? No, all of us know this. Anyone with an IQ above 6 knows this.
I’ll explain this as concisely as I can: There are now only 59 votes for the Senate bill as is. They can’t pass a better bill anymore. They can’t even pass this bill again. Understand?
The House can suck it up and pass the Senate bill, change it later in reconciliation, and get this done, or they can fail to do so and lose everything.
It shouldn’t be difficult to understand.
The Senate isn’t refusing to do anything. The Senate doesn’t have the 60th vote.
You probably should rectify your comment about Nadler. He just issued a press release saying that he is for apssing the Senate Bill in its current form and passing an alternative bill through reconciliation.
Here’s the linky:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/nadler_speaks.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_me
dium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Talking-Points-Memo+%28Talking+Points+Memo%3A+by+Joshua+Micah+Mar
shall%29
that doesn’t say what you think it says.
What does it say then? He states that he supports passing the Senate bill along with an amended bill through reconciliation.
No he doesn’t. Read it again.
Well you might want to explain this to Balloon-Juice.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=33112
Nevermind, I reread it.
Oh, I so wish you were on these evoting lists. This so applies:
THANK YOU!!!!!
Advocacy is easy, and requires little thought – just passion.
Analysis, however, requires putting that passion in your pocket, getting out your reading glasses, and really taking your time to work through something to fully understand it.
Most people don’t – even those who assure you they did.
From a Massachusetts poll:
“HEALTH CARE BILL OPPONENTS THINK IT “DOESN’T GO FAR ENOUGH”
by 3 to 2 among Obama voters who voted for Brown
by 6 to 1 among Obama voters who stayed home
(18% of Obama supporters who voted supported Brown.)
VOTERS OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORT THE PUBLIC OPTION
82% of Obama voters who voted for Brown
86% of Obama voters who stayed home
OBAMA VOTERS WANT DEMOCRATS TO BE BOLDER
57% of Brown voters say Obama “not delivering enough” on change he promised
49% to 37% among voters who stayed home
Meanwhile, here in California Barbara Boxer’s support is slipping and the majority of voters oppose the Senate bill.
If you want a big Democratic fail this November, then by all means push a healthcare bill most voters don’t want that further encroaches on abortion rights and taxes the middle class while the insurance companies get rich. Gee, to oppose such a bill must be really really leftist.
Tell me, who is disconnected from reality here?