The danger of using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform all along was that it wouldn’t work. The administration was careful to include language in the budget that would allow for this procedure, but they neglected to do the same for climate change after Senate Budget leaders Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg warned them off. Contrary to the prevailing narrative among progressives, Bush was not able to do whatever he wanted by using reconciliation.
In 2005, when Gregg chaired the Budget Committee in the GOP-led Congress, Republicans sought to use budget reconciliation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The effort came close to succeeding but collapsed in the House when GOP moderates joined Democrats in opposition.
There is no guarantee that the Democrats can fare any better with their own House ‘moderates.’ However, it is probably their progressive members who pose the biggest obstacle to passing health care reform. That is because many progressives so loath the Senate version of the bill that they are unwilling to pass it in the House. And, passing the Senate bill in the House (without amendment) is now the only way to pass health care reform without using the budget reconciliation process.
Democratic aides say that senior White House officials would prefer the House pass the Senate healthcare bill without changes, which would obviate the need for a second Senate vote on the legislation.
The problem is that many liberal lawmakers in the House don’t like the Senate bill.
To compensate for this opposition, there is a proposal that the House would then pass a second measure making changes to the Senate bill. That measure could then pass through the upper chamber at a later date under special budgetary rules known as reconciliation, which allow legislation to pass with a simple majority.
Since Democrats and allied independents still control 59 seats, strategists believe it would be relatively easy to pass a second measure that would contain compromises reached between Senate and House negotiators, such as a limit on the tax imposed on high-cost insurance plans.
But Democratic lawmakers were split Tuesday evening over the prospect of passing the Senate bill and hoping for a later fix.
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said the Senate healthcare bill and the accompanying fix under reconciliation would have to be passed in tandem.
“It would have to be so quick that it would have happen at the same time,” Weiner said.
Actually, it would be impossible to do both bills at the same time, but what Weiner really means is that the trust level is so low that progressives would need some serious commitments and reassurance to sign off on the Senate bill in return for a reconciliation process later on. To my thinking, that reassurance would have to come in the form of a promise to fight to see that the reconciliation process can actually garner majorities in both Houses. It’s not enough to promise a vote. However, even in the best of times it was not a slam-dunk that the Democrats have 50 members in the Senate willing to use the reconciliation process for heath care. These are not the best of times.
It pains me to say it, but any progressives who think we will get more progressive outcomes in this Congress by allowing the Republicans to completely kill health care reform are just plain wrong. On the other side, any moderates who think the Senate health care plan is more popular than the progressive alternatives simply cannot read polling data. The path should be clear. Pass the Senate version and then make it more populist through the reconciliation process, and whip that vote like your presidency and your majorities depend upon it.
Let’s go.
