Ed Kilgore and Mike Lux on a public option, triggers and reconciliation

[ProSense]

Ed Kilgore responds to Mike Lux's piece:

Mike Lux is a very pragmatic and unity-minded member of the self-conscious progressive wing of the Democratic Party. So it certainly got my attention when he published a post at OpenLeft today threatening that adoption by Senate Democrats of Sen. Olympia Snowe's "public option trigger" would create a "Democratic Civil War."

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Now Mike is saying that's all a sham, and you'd have to expect that many public option opponents would say the same thing from the opposite perspective, arguing that the "trigger" will always be pulled. As Ezra Klein also noted in his piece on the "trigger," there's not much of a constituency for compromise on this issue. And that's why offers of a legislative "fix" for the flaw that Mike is focusing on won't be very warmly welcomed.

But here's the realiity: As a practical matter, if Senate Democratic leaders reject both co-ops and a "triggered" public option, then they probably have to move health care reform legislation via the budget reconciliation route. It's not just a matter of giving up the pursuit of Olympia Snowe (and perhaps the one or two Republicans she might be able to bring with her); enough "centrist" Democrats have heartburn over a "robust" public option, over a purely partisan bill, or over what will eventually emerge from a conference committee, to all but guarantee that Democrats will fall short of the 60 votes necessary to kill a filibuster, even now that Massachussets is supplying Democrats with a 60th senator.

As I noted earlier this week, there are legitimate concerns about how the use of reconciliation would play out. Maybe that really is the way to go, and maybe it will produce a 50-plus-one vote margin for a bill that not only has a strong public option, but that's pretty close to what the House is likely to pass, which simplifies this whole process considerably.

But in cases like this, a Plan B would be advisable, and public option supporters might want to give some serious thought as to whether there is a version of the "trigger"--in which "affordability" is better defined, and a larger scale for competion is provided than the state-by-state approach Snowe is promoting--that might be acceptable if push comes to shove. This really isn't a great time for a "Democratic civil war."

Mike Lux comments in response:

I think Ed has some very thoughtful comments here. I do believe that it is far easier to pass a strong bill doing it through reconciliation, and I don't think the procedural hurdles are insurmountable, so I do tend to favor that option. But I also don't think progressives should be closed to any compromise at all. I just think the Snowe trigger amendment is a truly awful piece of legislation, really less of a compromise than an attempt to fool people into thinking it's a compromise.

[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[SoxFan]

2. Thoughtful, civil discussion? Pffft!