The Senate has lost. The House has the power now. House can force Reconciliation and a Public Option

Now that the Senate has 59 votes, reconciliation is the only way many things will get done. The only way that HCR can now get passed is if the House votes for the Senate bill without any changes. The House will not do that, according to people like Weiner, without some things getting changed via reconciliation in the Senate. The House can make a deal with the Senate to pass the HCR bill if the Senate simultaneously passes a Public Option/Medicare Buy-In through reconciliation. The Public Option is not dead. Brown may have just caused it to succeed.

if that means Medicare for all, great

entire history of this Nation, what should give us *HOPE* that she has the intestinal fortitude to push through POPULIST Health Care Bill?

the House bill has a public option

It was a small token gesture to appease the progressives. The Congressional Budget Office said that only 6 million people were going to be eligible/allowed to participate in that so called public option. Only 3 million in the short lived Senate version.

rather than what looked like a hodge podge mess that was primarily a heyday for the insurance companies.

Ultimately it's to do the will of the people.

The problem with the current HCR bill is the same problem a lot of big ideas that come out of "progressive" governments. Here's an abstract of the process:

1. Solicit ideas from members.

2. Sort and prioritize them, retaining what seem to be the best ones.

3. Cram them all into one big package that seems cohesive but nobody has time to read and nobody fully understands.

4. Throw out whatever concessions and compromises are needed to appease special interests so as to get enough votes to make it pass.

5. Conservatives, who have been doing little up to now, point out the flaws in the result and foment erosion of public support.

6. Rinse.

7. Repeat.

At this point, cramming what's left of the original ideas down the public's throat through reconciliation is only going to result in more losses in 2012.

Stick a fork in it.

How many here actually understand what reconciliation really is or have even tried to learn?

This was from last summer concerning reconciliation, but it still applies:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7480650

Reconciliation is not a slam-dunk panacea for HCR and the public option is dead because reconciliation won't help that. It's time to stop living in fantasyland.

a new bill to expand medicare for all and nit pic the rest later to get what this country needs....and get it done! The numbers will support it financially and it can be passed with reconciliation.

it doesn't seem to me that it does at this point

I said the House would pass the Senate version of HCR and also do reconciliation to pass other things the House wants. This has been brought up by people in the House. You may want to re-read my post. That means there will be no "starting over."

Yes, 5 and 2 of them are no longer there. Still think this is a slam dunk? Still think that Congress will magically conjure up a public option? I don't think so.

Plus, you cannot just simply do reconciliation on whatever you feel like doing it. You were aware of that, weren't you?

Just votes. House members have said similar things. Pelosi mentioned the possibility herself of using reconciliation to get what the House wants to pass the Senate bill in the House last night.

So are you saying that the House does not have the votes to pass the Senate bill without a public option? Or are you suggesting that there are not enough votes for a public option in the Senate to pass it via reconciliation (funding)?

not 1 from the Senate without a public option and 1 from the House with it. Are you really sure you know what this is about?

I am talking about passing two separate bills. The house can pass HCR by voting for the Senate bill (it would not need another vote in the Senate). The Senate and the House can work on another bill via reconciliation where they can put what the House wants into it. This isn't that complicated.

BTW, they are going to need to do a second bill for other government funding measures anyway, so it isn't unusual to do this.

None. Exactly how do you think Congress is going to get any other bill through the Senate without 60 votes for cloture, much less one that improves upon the present Senate bill?

Frankly I don't really believe you know what you are talking about, or you have a tenuous grasp of reality.

Oh well. Others seem to understand, so I guess I will just move on.

You are confusing two uses of the word 'reconciliation'.

One definition has to to with reconciling the differences of the Senate/House bill until there is agreement.
The other definition has to do with using the Budget Reconciliation process to pass a bill with only 51 votes.

You are confusing reconciliation with the word "conference". That is what it is called when the house and the senate meet to work out their differences (conference).

Yes, when the two chambers of Congress meet to resolve differences to a bill, there is a conference committee. However, the purpose of the committee is to reconcile the differences between two bills. This is not a term I make up, but the actual proper term used within Congress. That is why it is common for people to be confused about the two different meanings of reconciliation when they are discussing these issues. Budget Reconciliation traces its root to the same committee conference process, however, it is relegated to the finance related committees and is subject to various points of order that the result of the conference committee relate to the Budgeting process.

that term is used to define a budgetary process. Sure people 'reconcile' differences in a conference committee, but that is not its name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_%28United_States_Congress%29

Dontcha know the only reason Teddy's dream is on it's way to the water treatment facility right now aw we speak is because Universal free single-payer healthcare would have had like - a gazillion votes in the house AND the senate - but the EVIL Democratic party forbade any kind of progress at all! Because progress is a BINARY PROCESS dontcha know.

people don't bother to read the op where I say the opposite of the criticisms in the post

Then, they can pursue fix-it legislation that can be passed using reconciliation in the Senate.

or do it simultaneously with a better guarantee that their issues are being addressed.

that the fixes get done.

they could put in an expansion of medicare pretty easily I think

it certainly makes sense and the repubs can choke on it.

I remember you from 2004 and 2005, like when we spent New Year's Eve faxing every Senator a 25 page report that questioned the validity of the election results.

yeah, 2004 was when I really got into blogging

:hi:

People did end up going to jail in Ohio over that recount.

The can't

this is delusion

sorry

Not delusion, but the presence of understanding of the process.

Don't need Nelson, Lieberman, Brown, Lincoln,.......

I truely wish 51 votes is all it would take to pass the bill - but now we need 1 GOP vote to pass a reconciiation bill.

and we won't get from Scott Brown

sorry

NOHRC4U

it's dead

I am not talking about the conference process. Reconciliation is a process for passing budgets in the Senate and only requires 50+1 votes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_%28United_States_Congress%29

This of course is in tandem with the House passing the Senate HCR bill as is and sending it to Obama. (no need for the senate to vote on it again)

n/t

:applause: