The senate bill cannot be improved in conference without killing the bill

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The senate bill cannot be improved in conference without killing the bill

** If the senate passes a bill it will reach cloture with exactly 60 votes, having narrowly bought off several senators to get there.

** The senate bill will have been narrowly crafted to be the most liberal possible bill that can reach that 60 votes.

** When a conference bill makes it back to the senate it cannot be blocked from consideration and cannot be amended, but it can be filibustered. It requires the same 60 vote threshold to end debate.

** Thus any improvement of the bill in conference would kill the final bill in the senate. Any good (liberal) element that can get 60 votes in the senate will already be in the senate bill before it goes to conference.

[Hawkeye-X]

1. I call bullshit.

Just put Sanders, Feingold, Franken as a part of the HCR negotitating team, and they'll come back with a single payer plan.

They will be forced to vote with just 51 votes - and the conservadems and Blue Dogs will be unearthed when they vote NO on that plan.

Then American's anger will destroy their careers.

Even if survived the Byrd's Rule challenge, it will still reveal the true colors. So it's now or never.

Hawkeye-X

Those who vote AYE will survive. That's the only way to know who's not selling out, and those who have sold out.

[AlinPA]

10. re: 51 votes--I understand any post-conference bill must get past a filibuster.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. ...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. ...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. Does everyone agree? (would be rare but welcome)

[Clio the Leo]

4. I have this mental picture of this board.....

.... on one side of the playground are the "mad at Obama" kids and on the OTHER side of the playground are the "ride or die" Obama kids. Those kids spend all of recess throwing rocks at one another.

And IN the middle ..... is the little nerdy kid (that's a compliment) .... who isn't really on either side but knows more about the matter at hand than most everyone else out there.

Guess who that little nerdy kid is? ......... I'm going to try to remember this warm fuzzy moment when the debate over the war heats up and I cant stand you again. :)

But to answer your question .... I think you may be right ......... UNLESS my theory that some of what the cock blockers (can I call them that?) are doing is for show to their special interests ("I tried, but I couldn't stop them once they got to conference") ... or they will have gotten their respective palms greased (a la Mary Landrieu and the New Orleans thing.) or SOMETHING that will a bill that couldn't get 60 votes today could get it a month from now.

I remain hopeful.

[cliffordu]

5. I dunno. Anymore I am flummoxed.

I'd like to see the 'bill' pinching out of the sphincter of the senate.

[Phx_Dem]

7. Exactly right, but people here don't listen. They just bitch and

advocate doing things, like this, that are not tenable.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. And this has always been the case. (I kicked this old post in light of Nelson's comments.)

[Mass]

9. It was confirmed you were right. Nelson said his vote would change if any important modification was

done to the bill.

[Scarsdale Vibe]

11. The bill has thousands of provisions and formulas.

To pretend that Nelson or Lieberman are going to reverse their support due to any tweak that is made at all is disingenuous. The manager's amendment strengthened the annual limits on out-of-pocket costs and stripped the "unreasonable" terminology that had so many worried, but Nelson and Lieberman didn't make a peep about it. There will likely be some stupid posturing from Lieberman and Nelson still to come, but they're not gonna make a big fuss over number tweaks and strengthening of language in some provisions, unless it falls within their self-ordained purview, abortion for Nelson, and pissing off liberals for Lieberman.

Any self-congratulating that is done by progressive legislators during the conference merging will be self-defeating as it will increase Nelson's and Liebermans's likelihood of making up something to object to. I highly doubt Pelosi is stupid enough to crow about any conference changes until after the final bill has passed cloture in the Senate. Hopefully the rest of the progressive caucus follows her lead.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. If I had said that it would have been disingenuous

"To pretend that Nelson or Lieberman are going to reverse their support due to any tweak that is made at all is disingenuous."

I think almost everybody reading the OP recognized the contextual meaning of "improved". The OP is not about tweaks, it is about the sort of changes implied when someone argues the bill can be "fixed" in conference... reintroduction of PO, reintroduction of medicare+5% or medicare buy-in, elimination of Nelson abortion language, etc..

[Scarsdale Vibe]

14. Oh, I didn't realize that only certain fixes counted as "improvements".

Quite convenient that you've defined any improvement as those that are unlikely to happen, while the changes made to the manager's amendment today will likely have more impact on people's lives than the weak public option offered in the House bill would have had. Lieberman is blocking a weak public option and a Medicare buy-in, neither of which are more important than strengthening regulation, fixing loopholes, and moving taxes, subsidies, and spending in a liberal direction in conference, and Nelson isn't blocking anything that the conservative Democrats in the House wouldn't block anyways.

For example, there were 1.25 billion dollars more added to the Senate bill today for community health centers, but it is still 4 billion dollars less than the House bill. Moving the reconciled bill in the House's direction in this instance will probably have more effect on people's lives than the weak public option currently in the House bill which Lieberman is killing. There are hundreds of opportunities just like that to improve the bill in conference that likely won't incur the petulant wrath of Lieberman or Nelson.

[Better Believe It]

13. Senators Nelson and Leiberman will agree with that assessment