The New York Times is reporting that the White House is preparing to use reconciliation to advance health care reform. Reconciliation will be used to make changes to the Senate bill to make it an acceptable compromise between the House and the Senate. As always, the elephant in the room is abortion. Democrats said it [...]

There has been a lot of talk about using reconciliation lately. What is important is that reconciliation measures by law face only limited debate in the Senate, so, as a result, can’t be filibustered. Reconciliation measures can pass with a simple, Constitutional majority vote. Part of the what governs reconciliation is the Byrd rule. These [...]

A push is currently underway in the Senate to have Democrats include the public option as part of any reconciliation fix. Several Democrats have signed on to Sen. Michael Bennet’s (D-CO) letter. Some commentators like Jonathan Cohn and Ezra Klein think adding the public option would disturb some delicate balance of a potential compromise. The [...]

If Democrats are now working on a reconciliation sidecar strategy, they should use this opportunity to make policy changes to make the health care bill more popular, or, at least, less politically toxic. One thing they could do is remove the most unpopular provisions, like the oft-denigrated excise tax on employer-provided health insurance, or the [...]

The White House is pushing hard the meme that Americans’ disapproval for health care reform is purely based on their disgust with the process. While the process has been stomach-turning to watch, people also do actually hate many of the proposed policies within the bill. The White House seems incapable of acknowledging that the Senate [...]

The Democrats in Congress have still not reached a deal on how to move health care forward. The current favored strategy is a reconciliation sidecar, but the most recent news makes that seem unlikely to succeed. Weeks after losing the Massachusetts Senate seat, Democrats have still not even reached an agreement on whether to even [...]

A new PPP poll is making the rounds today. The poll reports that half of Americans (50%) are opposed health care reform, and only 39% state support. What is interesting is the source of much of the opposition: Digging a little deeper on those numbers though 64% of respondents planning or open to voting Democratic [...]

The single stupidest argument against using reconciliation to pass health care reform is the idea that reconciliation would appear “too partisan.” From CNN: “It looks too partisan,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, a freshman Democrat from Virginia. Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota likened the move to “legislative trickery.” Let’s leave aside the issue of [...]

Today, Sen Michael Bennet (D-CO) sent Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) a letter co-signed by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH). It asked Reid to add the public option to health care reform using reconciliation. The letter makes the case that a public option is popular, good politics, good policy, [...]

I’ll be at the Press Club in Washington DC tonight for a panel on “The Future of News.”
More details here, and you can also join the Facebook event.