Democrats Look At Bypassing Senate Health Care Vote

[laughingliberal]

BOSTON — A panicky White House and Democratic allies scrambled Sunday for a plan to salvage their hard-fought health care package in case a Republican wins Tuesday's Senate race in Massachusetts, which would enable the GOP to block further Senate action.

The likeliest scenario would require persuading House Democrats to accept a bill the Senate passed last month, despite their objections to several parts.

Aides consulted Sunday amid fears that Republican Scott Brown will defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy's seat. A Brown win would give the GOP 41 Senate votes, enough to filibuster and block final passage of the House-Senate compromise on health care now being crafted.

House Democrats, especially liberals, viewed those compromises as vital because they view the Senate-passed version as doing too little to help working families. Under the Senate-passed bill, 94 percent of Americans would be covered, compared to 96 percent in the version passed last year by the House.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/17/democrats-look-at-bypassi_n_426491.html

I see this as the likely scenario if Coakley goes down tomorrow. It's a horror as the scraps of change we saw coming out of the negotiations the President was mediating between the House and Senate last week would have given us a couple of important points from which we might have improved the bill. Specifically, having a national exchange rather that state by state could have become a jumping off point for further reform. The Senate bill truly is a bailout of an industry that will die on it's own if we don't pass the mandate. The article notes a mention of reconciliation being used but says Senate aides have said that is unlikely.

[The Wielding Truth]

1. Clean it up with no taxes on middle class plans,put PO back in ,and

do reconciliation! Use the power given to the house and the Democratic Party. Show that you can save this government. I implore the Democrats and Obama administration to step up!

[BP2]

3. +1 -- the only problem is, they don't have the guts. They'll have even less courage if Brown-noser

pulls it out a win in Mass.

[Political Heretic]

4. You can't do much of whats in health care through reconciliation

Only a narrow range of issues can be passed as part of the budget reconciliation process....and they have sunsets, as far as I know. And I'm pretty sure I'm right on that. Basing that on previous reporting detailing the reconciliation process, but it was a few months ago and I may have forgotten something.

Meaning you wouldn't get even the wrong-direction health insurance reform they are fighting for now, AND you'd get a hodge podge of half baked fragments rammed through without any broad framework of reform.

[The Wielding Truth]

6. I heard Mike Malloy go through the requirements for the rec. and he

said it would work. I hope he is correct.

[JVS]

7. Find out who the Repubs' and Blue Dogs' mistresses are, collect evidence to expose them,

scrap current plan, send some letters, introduce medicare for all.

[laughingliberal]

9. I like it. Unfortunately, those who know where the bodies are buried generally are working for the

other side.

[JVS]

10. Then you wait until near elections or primaries and purge members who may be liabilities by leaking.

If I know there is dirt on someone on my team, I reveal it at a point where it helps me get rid of him and thus the weakness he brings.

[Political Heretic]

2. Will. Not. Happen. The House had huge problems with Senate Bill, so that even a Conference version

was no guarantee that the house would pass it again.

There is not going to be a consensus for passing the Senate version of the bill "as is."

And if there is the god help us all, because the only hope was that the house might win at least some good things back in conference to spruce up what is a nightmare of a bill.

That would also mean that the negotiations made with unions on taxation of insurance plans would be out the window, because they would have to vote into law the version passed by the Senate, not the new compromises purportedly agreed to in negotiations with labor.

It would mean keeping the Senates WOEFULLY INSUFFICIENT subsidies for poor people, leaving millions of Americans STILL stranded in a situation where they can't reasonable afford health care.

It would mean caps on annual out of pocket costs would be so high as to put any working class family into bankruptcy or out of a home in they are living on the cusp of poverty and suddenly have a family member with serious illness and medical needs. (This basically means that it doesn't matter if you "have" health insurance if, as a poor person, you still have to pray to god every day that you never get really sick because you still couldn't afford the co-pay for extensive hospitalization or care.)

[laughingliberal]

5. Oh, I agree 100% about the harm the Senate bill does

And I fervently hope Coakley can pull it out tomorrow so we can get this bill through a conference. But I truly believe the House will go this route if Brown wins. There is no way to pass a bill, otherwise, and too many are invested in the need to say they reformed health care.

[Political Heretic]

8. I think there are too many deal breakers in it for enough of the house to go for it...

...I think they believe if they support that steaming pile they won't have a seat come their next election.

I'm talking about Dems in the progressive caucus and people who've gone on the record stating emphatically that they would not vote for the bill as is (such as Pete Defazio)

[Jamastiene]

11. What is so bad is that they could tweak the thing from where it is

and it wouldn't be all bad.

Even Nelson has asked that all states get the funding for Medicaid Expansion like his state got. That would make the bill quite a bit more palatable and useful.

A few changes have been made to it that are positive.

A few more key changes might make it a good bill, but no, they won't do that.

Why? I'll never understand.

These same corporations that provide health insurance in America also provide health insurance in countries with real reforms and real regulations. What's the difference between those countries and America? Why would America want to do business with companies that treat Americans different than other countries with better regulations?

I still have zillions of questions that I don't see any honest answers to from those in charge...and I never have seen anything other than insults directed toward those who have questions or problems with the Senate bill as is. Insults and eschewing someone's questions or concerns entirely is NOT the way to win hearts and minds.

[Selatius]

12. How is it a Democrat is having a struggle in a state like Massachusetts?

Is Coakley that piss-poor of a candidate that voters are having trouble distinguishing between the two?

[TheKentuckian]

13. 2 1/2 month race. not into glad handing, took a month off, and one of the first sightings

after the hiatus is a pharma fundraiser from what I hear. If that matches up roughly with reality then combined with other factors like the state of the economy and I think a rough ride is to be expected.

The national party should have kept a better handle on her, in my opinion and kinda shepherded her through the campaign. It sounds like she made McCain's campaign look like sunrise in America or Yes We Can. Unfortunately, we have way too many recycled Clinton hacks that think it is perpetually sometime between 1988 and 1994 or so and are full of electoral fail to do much other than squander the last several cycle's efforts in a matter of months.

[Selatius]

14. They should've ran a people person, somebody who knows how to glad-hand.

Bernie Sanders is a real people guy, for instance, and he's a champion of working class interests. People like him also because he's unafraid to fight for their interests over the interests of the top 1% in America. It is hard to believe that a state like Massachusetts doesn't have good, honest people up to the task of winning the vacant seat of the late Ted Kennedy, but in a nation built on rewarding mediocrity and failure (See George W. Bush) I shouldn't be too surprised to see this situation occur.