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Politico is reporting that Tom Harkin (D-IA) said Senate Democrats have decided to use reconciliation to finish health care reform, but there is a big caveat for House Democrats.
Sen. Tom Harkin told POLITICO that Senate Democratic leaders have decided to go the reconciliation route. The House, he said, will first pass the Senate bill after Senate leaders demonstrate to House leaders that they have the votes to pass reconciliation in the Senate.
Harkin is saying that House Democrats must first pass the current comprehensive Senate health care bill unchanged with just the promise that Senate Democrats will vote for a series of fixes later.
If House Democrats do vote for the Senate health care bill, they better be prepared to own the Senate bill unchanged. There are many stumbling blocks that could stop a reconciliation bill, and, with Obama already delivered a “win” on health care, it is not hard to imagine all the energy getting sucked out of the reconciliation push. That is especially a problem given the fact that the reconciliation sidecar is not expected to contain any popular elements like a public option, Medicare buy-in, or drug re-importation that could create grassroots energy and support for the reconciliation bill.
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wow, you’re right.
I wouldn’t trust the Senate in this.
This idea has had “Danger! Danger!” written all over it since it was first suggested. Basically, it says “Trust Us” and I don’t.
And now our feature presentation of “Kick the Football” with Tom Harkin playing Lucy and the House of Representatives playing Charlie Brown.
Tom Harkin, the “Champion” of the public option. It’s a lesson in taking any politician’s word.
The House needs to start getting inside the Senate’s OODA cycle (Its the freakin’ US Senate, a nursing home hospitality committee could act more decisively).
If the House put together and scored a reconciliation health care bill that made no reference to the Senate bill (‘we agree with the Republicans, we should reform the system incrementally, so Tricare buy-ins this year and we’ll look at insurance exchanges and subsidies again… sometime in the future’), I imagine the Senate would suddenly get more reasonable about the terms of a sidecare reconciliation bill to their own bill. If they didn’t, the House could pass their standalone bill and move on to other things without ever taking up the Senate bill.
Let the White House and Reid worry about finding 50 votes for it.
This is otherwise known as the brilliant Rahm Emanuel strategy “Blame Nancy.”
I am a constituent of Harkin and am simply disgusted with him.
I told his staffer that giving him Kennedy’s committee was a real mistake.
I also told him my vote is no longer his.
What a fricken kubuki.
Good luck with that.
The Senate Bill is an abomination.
And the Senate is lying that they’ll change it.
A vote for this package is a vote to retire in November.
Anyone who supports this who says they care about ‘electoral victory’ is a liar.
290 reasons to not trust the Senate.
The good news is that this monstrous taxpayer financed windfall to insurers and pharma will now fail.
Well said.
Kick the football. Lucy, Chuck, Peppermint, Linus, a dem senator, another dem senator, or sometimes a Likud independent. Those were good times though, weren’t they?
Now that’s a strategy I can heartily endorse. Interesting that you mention OODA, we don’t often see that one at FDL. Here are a few blogs on it.
I’ve been a fan of Col. Boyd since the olden days :o)
Thanks for the link, I’m bookmarking it to read once I finish this memo I’m working on. Did you see the Stupak / Weiner interview that Jon linked to?
h
If Stupak’s use of “single payer” wasn’t a slip of the tongue, its a pretty interesting development.