The Democrats should make the Republicans filibuster the fixes to health care

[Tony_FLADEM]

The House should pass the Senate Bill, Obama should then sign it.

Then the Senate should use the regular process to bring up the fixes and dare the Republicans to filibuster these.

For example, if people think the Health Care Bill pays for abortions, Republicans will get blamed since they are not allowing this to be fixed.

[Sherman A1]

1. The Dems should make the GOP filibuster everything

instead of the current process..

"You object to a bill... Fine"

"You want to filibuster.... Fine, but you will be doing it, so have a good pair of shoes, plan on some long nights and bring the copy of the phone book with you, because this just got real".

[Better Believe It]

2. One problem with that. You may not have 51 votes for the"fixes" you'd like to see.

Only 24 Senators have even signed a letter urging Reid to include some kind of unspecified "public option" in a reconciliation bill.

And the Senate parliamentarian may rule that many or even all "fixes" you might want can't be included in a reconciliation bill.

Here's what I think the House needs to do in order to avoid getting burned on reconciliation by the conservatives and "centrists" in Senate:

Before the House votes for the Senate bill they should insist that the Senate:

1. Prepare and release the exact legislative language of all the "fixes" that will be proposed in a Senate reconciliation bill.

2. Ask for a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian of what, if any, "fixes" of a proposed Senate reconciliation bill would not be in compliance with Senate budget reconciliation rules.

3. Have at least 51 Senators publicly sign a pledge to vote in favor of the complete reconciliation package.

I would think those should be the minimum demands of the House leadership.

Will the House make those and perhaps other demands on the Senate before they bring the Senate bill before the House for a vote or will they just "trust" the Senate to possibly pass unspecified House proposals via reconciliation at some time in the future?

[Tony_FLADEM]

3. If you use Reconciliation the things that can be fixed are limited

My idea puts the Republicans on the spot and makes them take some of the blame for any shortcomings in the Senate Bill. It's more difficult to filibuster health care than fixing it.

[Better Believe It]

4. My response was in regard to your proposal that the House pass the Senate bill first.

"The House should pass the Senate Bill, Obama should then sign it.

Then the Senate should use the regular process to bring up the fixes and dare the Republicans to filibuster these."

Before that is done I think the House needs some guarantees that the "fixes" will be included in any reconciliation bill and have enough votes, 51, to pass the Senate.

If the progressive fixes are done outside of reconciliation and are included in a new full Senate bill the Republicans should be forced to filibuster against the entire bill. When they run out of gas, move to end debate (cloture) and pass the legislation.

Next have the House take up and vote on the same bill.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Are you going to repost this every day?

[Ozymanithrax]

6. So they filibuster, the Democrats fail to over ride, and the fix is gone.

Why do you want to defeat these fixes in the Health Care bill?

[Tony_FLADEM]

7. The Republicans will then get blamed for anything people don't like and this will help the Democrats

politically.

[Ozymanithrax]

8. But none of the fixes will pass.

I have absolutely no belief that the Republicans will get the blame. They will get a solid 39% of the vote without trying. If the Democrats fail to deliver on health care, they get a bunch of the independents.

If Democrats fail to do things, they will get blamed and will loose independents and Democrats who sit on their hands to punish the Democrats.

And one more thing, Americans are dying because they have no health care. Playing politics with health care because we think the Republicans will get blamed is as wrong as the republicans playing politics with health care because they think it will win them the midterms.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. Reconciliation can't be filibustered. But it can be amended without limit. On

Greta Van Susteren's Fox broadcast last night, former Senator Rick Santorum pointed out that each amendment takes up about 20-25 valuable minutes of Senate session time, that the record for amendments under reconciliation is 90, and that McConnell and company are likey to shatter that mark resoundingly. Even after the sad example of obstructionism Jim Bunning has set.