It is fairly easy to get HCR as good as we were going to get if Coakley won

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

To really get the situation of what can be done we have to recognize where we were in the first place.

If Coakley had won the Senate bill was never going to be improved much. The Senate bill is the bill and was always the bill and will always be the bill because Lieberman, Nelson et al have veto power over any final HCR bill. All the public posturing about what the House wants has been mere political theater because everything has to be signed off on by Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, etc..

For instance, the Nelson abortion language was never going to be removed unless Nelson agreed to have it removed.

Remember when they reached the 'cadillac-plan tax' compromise with labor at the WH last week? After striking a deal they rushed Lieberman to the WH to get his assent because announcing any deal without Lieberman signing off on it first was an invitation to a pie in the face. Every line of any final HCR bill had to have Lieberman's assent.

So, accepting the (grim) reality of what we were going to get if Coakley had won, what can we get with her having lost?

Answer: Pretty much the same deal. Actually, probably a wee-bit better as it plays out.

I understand the arguments about whether the bill is worth passing but that's outside the scope of what I'm talking about. The HCR plan isn't great but Coakley's loss doesn't necessarily make it any less great.

Scenario: House passes Senate bill in a deal with House liberals that certain provisions in the Senate bill will be changed later under reconciliation--notably restoring the union 'cadillac tax' deal. (or, if it looks like the votes are there, substituting the House bill wealth-tax funding method for the policy-surtax.)

It is said that this would be a leap of faith for House liberals because the WH or Senate could sell them out... the fix would never happen. But once Pelosi keeps her promise to put the "fix" before the House everything else falls into place. (Assuming we have 50 actual Dems in the Senate, which seems to be the case.)

Here is how it would go down:

1) House passes Senate bill. (Senate cannot act on the bill again.) President signs it.

2) Pelosi puts new "fix" bill before the House in form that qualifies for Senate budget reconciliation rules. The fix is modest. Restoring the deal with labor, for instance, is a matter of tax policy. As you'll recall Bush ran tax policy changes through under reconciliation routinely.

3) Budgetary "fix" passes the House, goes to Senate.

4) Fix cannot be blocked; can only be filibustered for 32 or 48 hours. (I forget the exact number, but it's only a couple of days.) It only take 41 votes to uphold a ruling by the chair that the bill qualifies as budgetary. Fix passes Senate with 50+1.

5) President signs it

At no point does the WH have to do anything except not veto the bills. The Senate blue dogs play no part in the process because reconciliation rules apply... their votes are never needed. All Reid has to do is have a reliable Dem in the chair to rule (correctly) on the propriety of reconciliation.

We could afford to lose Lieberman, Webb, Nelson, Lincoln, Landrieu, Baucus and a few others.

So why, you ask, why didn't we do this in the first place? Because we couldn't have gotten 60 votes in the senate for the non-budgetary stuff if the blue-dogs thought the budgetary stuff would be changed later without their agreement. They accepted a negotiated package based on inclusion of things like the cadillac-plan tax. So we would be betraying the betrayers.

This might even help blue-dogs in tough elections because they get a free vote against the plan. (We don't need their votes so they can go full wing-nut if it makes folks in Nebraska or Arkansas happy.)


Obvious caveat: If there are not enough votes in the House to pass the fix, or if it cannot reach 51 in the senate, those are different issues. Pelosi can promise to get something on the floor but she cannot promise that it will pass... obviously the fix has to be designed to be something that can get 50%+1 in House and Senate. We cannot reasonably hope for measures that cannot even get 50 votes in the Senate.

[librechik]

1. yup--biting the bullet.

Keep writing and calling your evil reps to insist on the public plan etc. We may get a (little bit o') change yet...

[Andy823]

2. Well I agree with you

This is a good way to get the bill through, and then come back and make it better. It would be a base to work from, and over time they could change a lot of the stuff that isn't so great, and maybe even come up with something that would get us to a real UHC system. So the only problem I see is will they do it?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. I would say better than 50% chance.

They MUST have a bill.

They MUST have a bill SOON.

Accepting that political reality there are not a lot of options.

The Coakley loss give House liberals handy cover to vote for the Senate bill that is 99% what they were going to end up voting for anyway -- after a lot of kicking and screaming.

[Clio the Leo]

3. Pretty spot-on assessment IMO. NT

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. My apologies to those who are reading this OP for the fifth time

I have posted this (with minor changes) several days in a row in GD and GDP.

At first it was too pessimistic, since it discussed Coakley losing.

Then it was too soon -- people were angry abut the election and not in a mood for legislative procedure.

Now that this is shaping up as a likely scenario it's cliche.

C'est la vie!