The reason that I am hoping the Democrats push the health care bill through the budget reconciliation process is simple. We can get a better health care bill at the 51-vote (including Biden) threshold than we can get at the 60-vote threshold. If we try to get 60 votes it means that every Democrat, and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, has an effective veto over any provision that they don’t like. And, frankly, I don’t want Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe determining what kind of health reform we get. Now, the Republicans are getting very testy about the prospect of this bill getting passed through reconciliation.
Tenn. Sen. Lamar Alexander, one of the canniest Republicans in the upper chamber, tells Fox that using reconciliation to pass health care in the Senate is like going to war without the permission of Congress.
“Thumbing their nose at the American people by ramming through a partisan bill would be the same thing as going to war without asking Congress’ permission,” he said. “You might technically be able to do it, but you’d pay a terrible price in the next election.”
It should be remembered that George W. Bush passed his massive tax-cuts for the have-mores in 2001 and 2003 using the budget reconciliation process. The 2003 tax cuts passed on a 50-50 vote, with Dick Cheney breaking the tie. The Republicans won the 2002 and 2004 elections despite using strong-arm tactics that Sen. Alexander likens to going to war without Congress’ permission.
So long as the administration tries to pursue a strategy of winning 60 votes, we are going to see articles like this:
White House officials have signaled that they are prepared to scale back their aspirations for the health care legislation. In private conversations, some said they would be happy even if they end up with a pared-back program that can serve as a basis for future efforts.
One element clearly on the table is a proposed government-backed health insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Just as they have in recent weeks, White House officials indicated Sunday that Mr. Obama would continue to push for the so-called public option but they did not make it a condition of signing whatever bill lands on his desk.
And, the only way to move forward will look like this:
People familiar with Mr. Baucus’s plan said it was calculated to appeal to Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine. But, at first glance, they said, it appears unlikely that the proposal, in its current form, could win support from the other Republicans in the “group of six,” Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming…
…Mr. Baucus’s proposal does not include a “trigger mechanism” of the type recommended by Ms. Snowe, who would offer a public insurance plan in any state where fewer than 95 percent of the people had access to affordable coverage.
Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, expressed support for Ms. Snowe’s idea on Sunday. On the CNN program “State of the Union,” he said Mr. Obama ought to say that “if there’s going to be a public option, it has to be subject to a trigger.”
“In other words,” Mr. Nelson said, “if somehow the private market doesn’t respond the way that it’s supposed to, then it would trigger a public option or a government-run option, but only as a fail-safe backstop to the process.”
But these things proceed in steps. The administration does not want to declare the effort to pass health reform through the Senate at the 60-vote threshold dead. They want, if it cannot pass, for the Republicans to vote on it and show their cards. At that point, the Democrats can point to their obstruction and use it as the reason that they must pass the bill using the controversial budget reconciliation process.
All of this might work quite well, even if it drives everyone nuts as it is unfolding. But, in order for it to work well, the blame must get correctly assigned and the strategy must be implemented correctly. The goal should not be to pass whatever shitty bill that can win the support of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate (plus Sen. Snowe). The goal should be to pass Obama’s original plan that he campaigned on. That means the Democrats must assure their own defeat in the Senate (or the Conference Report), and then turn around and start fighting for a more aggressive health care bill in reconciliation.
Will they do that? Or will a failed effort to win passage at the 60-vote threshold stall the momentum for reform?
To guard against a loss of momentum, it would be better for the Senate to vote on and defeat their health care bill, rather than pass it and have the Conference Report fail in either the House (thru progressives who have pledged to oppose a bill without a public option) or the Senate (thru Democrats and Snowe, who oppose a bill with a public option).
If different versions of the bill pass both houses and go to the Conference Report, the consequences of failure go up considerably. Not only is momentum lost, but it will open up fissures within the party and make it look to the public like the Democrats are incapable of governance. It will be very hard to keep the blame for failure on the Republicans. And the Democratic base will be badly demoralized, no matter the outcome. Midterm elections are base elections, and Obama’s coattails will be limited.
To summarize, the only way to pass a good health care bill is at the 51-vote threshold (including Biden) and the only way to do that is through the budget reconciliation process. The immediate job in September, then, is managing short-term failure. We have to make sure the blame for failure is assigned to obstructionist Republicans in the Senate and we have to make sure we fail in the correct manner (through failure to pass any bill in the Senate). If we get those two things right, the landscape will be set to ram a good bill home in October.
Needless to say, no one in the party leadership can say publicly that this is the strategy. But it is the correct strategy both politically and substantively.
