The Insidious Myth Of The Progressive “Bill Killers”

[natrat]

By: Jon Walker Sunday December 20, 2009 5:25 am


There is a very insidious myth right now that there is a large group of progressive leaders who want to “kill” health care reform in its entirety. While there might be some progressive leaders out there who have advocated for this position, I have yet to hear from them. What I have heard from people like Howard Dean, Markos Moulitsas, Keith Olbermann, Jane Hamsher, etc… is that they simply want to kill the current version of the Senate bill. None of them, to my knowledge, have advocated ending all efforts to pass a health care reform bill. I believe each and every one of them have advocated for simply passing a different bill through different means. Do not heed those who are working to create a false dynamic where the only two options are passing this horrible Senate bill or passing nothing at all. The idea that there is a large group of progressive leaders trying to kill health care reform is a red herring.

The other great myth is that if this current Senate bill, thoroughly compromised to get 60 votes, does not become law it will be impossible for any health care reform to pass during this Congress. President Obama made sure to include instructions to pass health care reform using reconciliation in the budget for a reason. It is still completely possible to pass an arguably better bill with only a simple majority in the Senate using reconciliation. Progressive activists are demanding to “kill this particular Senate bill” because they know Democrats will not walk away from health care reform empty handed. If need be, they will use reconciliation. While Senator Harry Reid and Barack Obama for some reason think it is preferable to let Senators Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Blanche Lincoln gut health care reform; if they are forced to, they will use a special procedure that completely cuts these conservadems out of the debate.

While I cannot speak for other progressives, I personally have outlined at least four strategies to produce a better reform package:

1. Try to pass a version of the House bill using reconciliation. Take provisions removed by the Byrd rule and pass them by attaching them whole or piecemeal to the next few big defense and/or agricultural appropriations bills.
2. Use reconciliation to pass a bill with only Byrd-rule proof provisions. This would include an expansion of Medicaid, expansion of CHIP, early Medicare buy-in, public option, possibly employer mandate, etc…
3. Pass the bill with no individual mandate for right now. Let progressives hold the individual mandate hostage until some point between now and 2015 (when the individual mandate goes into effect), and they will trade it in exchange for better reforms. There is zero need to have the individual mandate just sitting on the books unused for the next few years.
4. Force Harry Reid to use the “nuclear option” like former Senator Bill Frist threatened to do.

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[Pirate Smile]

1. It should have been Fix the Bill not Kill the Bill because there will be no

replacement Bill. It is this one which can still be modified in conference or nada.