Shhhh: Sneaky Dems create Obamacare reconciliation loophole
While few were watching, the Democrats were at work today paving a short cut to passing Obamacare through the reconciliation process. From CBS News via Political Wire:
Now that health care reform is moving to the floor of the Senate, Democratic leaders are parsing over the details of the bill, devising ways secure 60 votes for reform — starting today, however, they do not necessarily have to.
This past summer, the Senate wrote into its budget rules that beginning Oct. 15, they could use a procedural maneuver called “reconciliation” to pass health care reform, which would allow the bill to pass with 51 votes instead of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster. A committee in the House of Representatives today quietly took the precautions necessary to allow the Senate to proceed with reconciliation, if it comes to that…
…Using reconciliation will remain an option until Democrats can get 60 members to cooperate — and the party wants to pass a health care bill this year. Liberal advocates for reform say getting all 60 Democrats to cooperate should not be difficult, even to pass a bill with the much-debated public option, since they do not even technically need to vote for the bill — they simply need to agree to not stand in the way.
Policy-wise, the reconciliation process is simply not intended for comprehensive pieces of legislation like health care reform.
The Senate rules allow reconciliation bills to pass with a simple majority and limited debate on matters that pertain to the budget — something the Senate saw as too important to be weighed down by partisanship. Since reconciliation bills must pertain to the budget, the Senate is not allowed to use them for matters that would set policy. For this reason, some lawmakers have warned that a reconciliation health bill would have to leave out important provisions (such as consumer protections), resulting in a “Swiss cheese” bill.
If the Senate were to use reconciliation, however, it would most likely include the non-budgetary — and noncontroversial items — in one bill and write a second bill to pass under reconciliation. Congressional staff have been crafting ways they could convert the current legislation into bills that could pass through that process, Weissenstein said.
The real challenge, Weissenstein added, is political.
“I think it would be perceived, certainly by Republicans and moderates, as a last ditch effort to pass something that didn’t have popular support,” he said. “If you’ve gotten to that point, in some ways you’ve kind of lost the war.”
Shhhhh…
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I wonder if Yellow Snowe got any of this in her “call from history?”
It is still pretty amazing that with complete control of both houses that they are still having a difficult time getting this to pass. It is not like the Republicans who kept jumping across the aisle and acting like losers even when they won.
One would tend to believe that maybe this would be their first clue … but alas, they know so much better than we the people do.
Not really. As Mark Steyn has pointed out many times, passing Obamacare will shift the United States permanently to a left-of-center culture. The democrats could not care less how it is passed or how the passage is perceived. The Republicans will not make any efforts to stop it at that point. You can draw your own conclusions about the consequences.
I actually hope the Democrats pass it. It will destroy them. We can pick up the pieces later.
This things will utterly infuriate America. Democrats will be Endangered Speicies. The entire Obama Presidency will collapse if this passes. The cluesless Dems do not see it coming.
Nuke ‘em.
Where’s the civility in these kinds of tactics? These people have no honor.
I wish it would. But there has never been an instance in which national/socialist healthcare has passed and then been repealed. There aren’t too many safe bets you can make historically, but this is one of them. Once passed it won’t go away.
Chap,
Care to bet that abortion will be a part of the bill? Say, $1000?
Sad that the Dems will not let the bill pass on its merits (as if there are any). It will be a sad day indeed if Obama-chia health care passes in this manner.
Let them pass it and justify 500B dollars in cuts to the government program that seniors paid into all their lives with the promise they’d be covered in retirement.
Tell the seniors how they HAD TO cut Medicare to cover illegal aliens and young healthy people who couldn’t afford insurance otherwise.
Again I say this makes Rudy’s Florida strategy look like a moon shot in intellectualism.
Take it to the end game if it is successful. What happens when they effectively destroy the middle class and the producers of the nation? At that point, there is no more support for all the welfare babies in addition to the millions who have been added to the welfare roles with the destruction of the middle class through (illegal) wealth distribution. Now comes the time to pay and they will pay by having to take government “sponsored” jobs (read: private industry taken over by the government) in order to get their social welfare checks.
Of course, if and when it reaches that state of affairs, it will be too late to fight it off … but hey, that only happens in places like Russia and China of the 1940s through to the 80s … it could never happen in the USA.
Could it?
If the lying Dems weren’t trying to hide all kinds of crap passed in this bill, they wouldn’t have to pull this Houdini act to get it passed.
This means much will be passed, with little public knowledge until after the fact.
Would this actually happen? or do they have other tricks up their sleeves to ensure their hold on power?
And do the Republicans currently in office have the bag to repeal things that could not stand the light of day? or will they go wobbly at the first lie from the left?
Once in control of the House, they simply do not fund it. Repealing the underlying law changes will probably take some time.
The bottom line to all of this will be exposed next Nov.
ALL of the healthcare plans proposed implement NEW TAXES next year. This will push unemployment up beyond the projected 10%+ leaving a lot of the people that have voted for all of this absurd spending looking for new jobs.
I doubt they would use these kinds of tactics if they were not reasonably sure that, once enacted, the law would stay in place. The political risk is too huge.
Unfortunately, they are probably right. Even if, miraculously, the Republicans take control of both houses in 2010 and carry the White House in 2012, the chances they will repeal … ANYTHING are slim.
It’s just not the way politicians think.
It is over, it is done, the end has begun
when you listen to fools the mob rules
This is the endgame. We’ve allowed the left to rule over the “education” of our children for 70+ years, and it has finally weeded out common sense from enough of our population that we elected our Manchurian Candidate on nothing more than charisma, and the propaganda of the legacy media.
The consequences are serious, more serious than anything we’ve ever faced.
Sadly, I don’t see anything real being done to stop this.
The mendacity of the Congress is the worst ever in the history of this Republic. Once this health care abomination is implemented, the country will be changed forever and the Soviet model will have to be implemented to complete the job. Of course, if Ayn Rand is right, the productive people in this country will stop working, allow things to collapse, and then come back to pick up the pieces.
This is the end game for the country we grew up with but only the beginning of this attempted takeover.
Except once the producers stop producing, there is nobody left to pay the bills forcing the govt to put people to work for mere subsistence pay or the new equivalent of our current welfare system. The only option for the nation is to force people to work for the state completing the soviet style takeover and not rebuilding our Constitutional Republic.
God willing, there will be enough pieces left to pick up and begin putting back together but the more I see here, the more I wonder.
If you need any more convincing to get involved, just imagine what the future plans of Duh One for this country will have on our children and our posterity. Will history look back on us as the generation that took our nation back or as the generation that finally lost the greatest “experiment” in history.
Twenty years ago even I would have thought this sounded far fetched and crazy … these days … not so.
We are in the middle of a socialist coup; happening right under our noses. These traitors will pass this legislation whether we, the people of this Country, want it or not.
These people take a oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not to shred it at every opportunity. The public has said no to cap and trade, bailouts and this healthcare scam. I see them as traitors.
Reconciliation has been widely discussed, in public, for a vary long time, as an alternative way to geet healthcare reform. How it would and what it requires has also been discussed. This is no secret and suggesting that anything sneaky is going on is a mischaracterization.
Granted, strategy meetings on how to achieve and succeed in reconciliation is being done privately. No doubt strategy to prevent reconciliation is also being discussed privately.
Strategy development on both sides of the aisle, in any White House, and in Supreme Court deliberations have always been done behind closed doors. This is nothing new.
zyzzyg said:
Shifting 1/6 of the economy and plotting Socialized Medicine in the dead of night and not allowing anyone to read what they want to pass is sneaky, cowardly and about the lowest life act ever foisted on the American Public.
Maybe theDemocrats will show us the budget line items for this ‘budget item’ for the last two years.
A new trillions of dollars entitlement is not a budget item.
Are the Republicans going to stand up and demand this not be done?
Lying is becoming a Democrat line item …
Absolutely it is. Steyn is wrong though – FDR is the guy that shifted us forever to the left of center by intentionally creating the permanent parasite class For the first 150 years the SCOTUS repeatedly ruled that specific welfare was not constitutional. There was not enough support for any of his Ponzi schemes to garner a proper amendment, so he blackmailed the SCOTUS with a dilution of power of the court that was sadly all it took them to cave.
The Constitution is dead for all intents and purposes.
.
This type of thinking that ruined America. Sitting around behind closed doors thinking of ways to circumvent law in order to avoid their constituents and their opponents is not anything we should be supporting.
And I don’t care to hear the “Well, they do it” whining. It’s wrong and our country is dying from diseases these “minor” transgressions have brought.
How can you even TRY to defend what these traitors are doing to us? I know you want to always show both sides and make the right out to be just as bad as the left. It isn’t working. The liberals have been using their shady tactics on this country for a long time now. The republicans in Congress have been patsies. There is a difference. Liberals=corrupt. Republicans=gullible, stupid, ignorant, etc. Big difference. We need to get rid of the corruption AND the stupidity, and fast. Torches and pitchforks ready? MARCH!
Over my dead body. I mean that. They will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. My ancestors fought and died for this Constituiton. This is for keeps, folks. They can’t have my country!!! They have NO RIGHT to do this to the last best hope on Earth for freedom and liberty. People risk their lives every day to come HERE because we are FREE. They know what freedom means. Apparently, there are too many morons in this country who don’t (thank you public education). The schools won’t teach American history. Parents, it’s up to you! If we don’t have FREEDOM, we have NOTHING!
Which law is being circumvented by reconciliation?
They can pass it the sneaky way if they want, but they’re fooling themselves if they think people aren’t watching and word won’t get out. They’ll pay at the polls.
This battle was lost in 06′ and 08′ when the leadership was turned over to the Democrats. Unfortunately the lesson is going to be learned after lots of damage is done to the country. I hope they keep it up because, it adds up to more losses for the Democrats in 10′ and 12′.
the republicans are nominating some left-wing wacko Scozzafava for the seat in NY-23…anyone thinks electing republicans is going to fix this is dreaming…they are greatly responsible for the state we are in. Beck is right.
the country isn’t going to collapse, we’re going to become a one-party state…ie the entire country will be like detroit..a ruin…and the dems will keep getting elected because they care.
everyone except some of us, will have learned to love big obama.
Chap,
Not going to take my bet? Changed your mind about abortion in Obummer-care?
Huh?
Oh.
Define “part of the bill”?
It is unfortunate that you are buying in to the mischaractrization of how things are done.
It is not illegal, or wrong, to strategize in private. It is not illegal, or wrong, for Judges to deliberate in private. It is not illegal, or wrong, for an Administration to discuss policy privately before they reveal it.
Conference committees that meld bills (any and all bills) from the House and the Senate are done behind closed doors, wait for it . . . until the bill is released publicly and is openly voted up, or down, in the respectives chambers.
There is no conspiracy, every one knows the rules, and yes everyone tries to use those rules to their advantage. It is called ‘sausage making.’ And, yes it has be going on for a very long while.
It is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to now describe the process as sneaky.
When the time comes, the melded bill will be openly discussed, straight up or in reconciliation. When the time comes the strategy of the Democrats will be revealed. When the time comes the counter strategy of the Republicans will be revealed.
For the record, the bill should be read, posted on line and not voted on in the wee hours of the day, like pay raises.
Michelle Malkin’s abject failure to mention the use of reconciliation during the Bush years: dishonesty or amnesia?
See:
2001 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 1836, 3/26/01]
2003 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 2, 3/23/03]
Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 [HR 4297, 5/11/06]
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 [H. Con Res. 95, 12/21/05]
The part where the gov pays private insurers who include abortion as part of their coverage.
Where were you during the last eight years?
Also, which bill? There are how many floating around between the two bodies right now?
All of them, according to talk radio, contain this facet.
I say go right ahead and use reconciliation. That way, when the GOP has a majority after the 2012 election, they can use reconciliation to undo these “reforms”, which President Palin will happily sign.
Each of the bills you linked to were dealing with budget items….which is the purpose of reconciliation.
It is a process used to pass issues affecting the budget that could be contentious, and important enough that they should not be held up by the minority.
The process has NEVER been used to pass crap like the socialization of health care.
You could argue it might affect the budget considering the huge tax increases we will be seeing to fund this farce, but a majority of any bill passed will be a change in POLICY.
Wake the hell up.
Chap,
Don’t play stoopid. You said abortion would NOT be included in the Obama-care bill. Obama said abortion would not be a part od the new health care reform. You flat told me abortion would NOT be included.
Time to put up or shut up.
$1000???
I think conservatives had better roll up their sleeves and start getting to work to defeat the statists from both parties so we can have a chance to take over the Congress and, hopefully, the White House by 2012. If we don’t, this country is finished, fiscally and constitutionally. I mean there needs to be an uprising at the polls like nobody has ever seen before. And when it comes to the radical left, we have got to start calling things by their proper name.
No. I said that even if the bill is totally silent on the issue the Hyde Amendment would prevent federal funding of abortion.
Wanna bet? Say, $1000?
Nope. Even if I HAD $1,000 to throw around.