The GOP Has a Nuclear Option on Health Care

[DonViejo]

March 24, 2017 By Taegan Goddard

Rick Klein and Shushannah Walshe: “Want to really blow up the Senate – and fast? A new proposal is emerging that would likely do just that, and it has nothing to do with Senate Democrats’ vow to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. A proposal is being pushed by some Senate Republicans that would seek to ensure that a House-passed bill could be passed intact by only a simple majority of senators.”

“How would that work? Well, the vice president, of course, is the president of the Senate. The thinking goes that if the Senate parliamentarian ruled that parts of the bill can’t be folded into budget reconciliation, Vice President Mike Pence could simply overrule that. Sen. Rand Paul wants the White House to make that commitment now: ‘That alone, I think, would break the logjam,’ he told reporters Thursday. Perhaps, but that’s not all it would break. This would be the executive branch’s changing the rules of the upper legislative body. Filibusters could be broken, perhaps in any circumstance, at the whim of the vice president. In honor of a certain former veep, that would be a BFD.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2017/03/24/gops-nuclear-option-health-care/

[ibeplato]

1. that's true

but they likely don't have 52 Senators who would vote for the AHCA, or even a straight repeal of the ACA. Of course repealing the ACA entirely would increase the deficit, but they could rule that a hike in the deficit would actually lower the deficit.