Dem Leaders Scheme to Scrap Health-Reform Conference Committee

[debbierlus]

Progressive activists have put a good deal of energy into preparing for an anticipated House-Senate conference committee, in which the distinct health-care reform bills enacted by the two chambers would be reconciled. The theory has been that, in the conference process, it might be possible to strengthen the especially weak language and policies of the Senate bill.

But what if there is no conference committee? What if key players in the House and Senate come up with a scheme that would allow them to "work things out" among themselves without having to empower a conference committee? What if they simply scrap the freewheeling and potentially difficult to control negotiation over the character and content of the final bill?

Then pressure from progressives could be without consequence, as all authority would rest with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and a few of their closest compatriots. And the insurance industry and other lobbying interests that offer congressional Democrats the prospect of substantial 2010 election funding would only have to deal with House and Senate leaders who are already thinking -- make that, already worrying -- about the fall and who have set themselves up as conduits for campaign cash.

Could such a scenario play out? Absolutely.

Indeed, every indication suggests that congressional Democratic leaders are preparing either to go with a so-called "ping-pong" approach that would have the House simply take up the Senate bill -- or, more likely, to a strategy that would have differences between the two bills sorted out at the leadership level and agree to a set of changes that would be "packaged into a single amendment to the bill."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/512067/dem_leaders_scheme_to_scrap_health_reform_conference_committee