On Sunday, the House passed the Senate health care bill and a reconciliation package that contains a number of so-called fixes. That reconciliation package is being taken up today in the Senate. Because of the strange nature of the Byrd rule, which requires every part of the reconciliation package to affect the budget, it is [...]

In what is likely to be one of the last acts of health care reform kabuki theater, the role of the football will be played by President Obama’s proposed National Insurance Rate Authority. As always, the role of the Lucy shall be played by the Senate. The role of the football has previously been played [...]

One thing that has really bugged me is why vulnerable House Democrats are willing to walk the plank on health care reform to protect weird, stupid Senate rules they all hate anyway. Instead of passing the Senate bill as is and then hoping the Senate approves the changes they want through reconciliation, the House Democrats [...]

After Dick Durbin (D-IL) got attacked for saying that he would whip against the public option, he sent out his spokesman to lie about reconciliation in a pathetic attempt to justify Durbin’s role in trying to kill the public option. (Which is curious because we were told we could not have a public option because [...]

The Senate Republicans’ strategy on health care reform right now is warning House Democrats that they will do anything to derail a set of reconciliation votes. All 41 Republicans have already signed a letter saying that they will vote against any waiver of the Byrd rule, and are clearly working through every possible route to [...]

Democrats seem to have an unsolvable legislative problem on their hands. It does not seem that their current strategy of passing the Senate bill as is and then arranging some fixes through reconciliation will work. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and his anti-abortion gang want changes to the abortion language before voting on the bill, and Senate [...]

As much as I hate everything Bart Stupak (D-MI) is trying to do as it relates to abortion and health care reform–on policy, personal, and moral grounds–there is one, very small silver lining to his actions. He has made perfectly clear the difference between politely asking for something and fighting for something in Congress. Bart [...]

If (and that is a big if) Democrats move forward with health care reform using reconciliation, it is likely that there will eventual be an up-or-down vote on the public option. All it takes is one senator to offer a properly designed amendment – perhaps one of the 30 Senate Democrats who are on record saying they support an up-or-down vote on the public option. Maybe the American people will finally get to see who stands with the American people and which senators are working to protect the profits of the private insurance companies.

Ben Nelson (D-NE), living up to his role as the great defender of the health insurance industry, is now leading the fight against the new Health Insurance Rating Authority that Obama proposed as part of his health care reform package (PDF). From Politico: Nelson quietly urged Democratic leaders to reject Feinstein’s effort to include in [...]

Greg Sargent is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now expressing openness to possibly including the public option in a reconciliation measure. But, apparently, unnamed Senate aides think there might be procedural problems: It’s far from decided whether reconciliation will ultimately be used to pass reform. What’s more, senior Senate aides still think [...]