Pass the Senate Bill, add the reconciliation sidecar, and RESURRECT THE PUBLIC OPTION!

[backscatter712]

That's right, it can be done, and with only 51 votes in the Senate! All Congressional Democrats need to do is screw on their gonads and do it!

The House can start by passing the Senate health care bill, which yes, sucks, but can be fixed with the reconciliation sidecar bill.

I don't think I have to go over all the details of what should go in the sidecar. Needless to say, it needs to have the fixes in it that were agreed upon by the House and Senate before the Croakley clusterfuck - modifications to the Cadillac tax raising the threshold where it kicks in, and giving a temporary exemption to the unions, among other things.

But the beautiful thing is that the reconciliation sidecar can also have the public option added to it. Because the public option requires federal spending for the seed money, and also affects the health care market, which lowers costs for Medicare and affects the deficit that way, it's Byrd Rule compliant.

And when it's all said and done, it only needs 51 votes. We can not only shove it down the throats of the Rethugs, but we can also give the middle finger to Lieberman and Nelson!

It'd make heroes out of them - or at least it'd reverse the crashing poll numbers and loss of enthusiasm we've been dealing with for the past few months. If the Democrats are interested in electoral survival this November, I strongly recommend they do it!

[Faryn Balyncd]

1. The Senate needs to use reconciliation to pass a Public Option, period. Throw away the current bill

There is absolutely NO NEED for the House to pass the current bill.

[backscatter712]

2. Disagree. We can get a better bill by using the Senate Bill and adding a sidecar.

And Nate Silver explains why. Check this out. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/1-reconciliation-2-3-profit.html

It's because of the Byrd Rule - anything passed through budget reconciliation rules has to have something to do with budgetary spending and have some sort of effect on the deficit. If we kill the Senate bill, no more insurance regulation - no pre-existing conditions clause ban, no ban on rescission, no ban on age or gender rating, no mandatory community rating, that sort of thing. The Parliamentarian won't allow such regulation to be passed using reconciliation because they don't have much to do with federal spending.

That stuff is already in the Senate Bill, which yes, sucks rocks on its own, but if you combine the Senate bill with a reconciliation sidecar, you can get a health care law far better than what can be passed if you throw away the Senate bill and pass something only with reconciliation. And yes, the end result can include a public option if our Congressional Dems have the gonads to do it. It's using reconciliation in the optimal way to give the Lieberdems the finger and take away their veto power.

[jefferson_dem]

3. Only certain types of legislation can be passed via the reconciliation process.

Much of what is healthcare "reform" is not germaine. So the only option is to pass the Senate bill and fix some of the more shitty parts with reconciliation.

Nate Silver is correct...per usual.

[Pirate Smile]

5. Wrong. You can't get the insurance regulations through just reconciliation.

[Hansel]

4. I suspect there are people in the WH who have known this all along

but can't really say it publicly. Especially before the Senate vote. Now they just have to convince some the Progressives who don't trust the Senate to go along with it. Hopefully, they will send down David Plouffe to make the case.

[Pirate Smile]

6. I read on Friday that Nancy is meeting with the Dem caucus on Monday.

She and Harry are supposed to be figuring out what all they could stick in a Reconcilliation patch if the House passes the Senate Bill.

Hopefully, Plouffe will be at the Monday morning caucus too - to tell them they need to pass the Senate Bill and then fix it with the patch pronto.

[backscatter712]

7. Let's hope the public option goes back on the table.

Like I said, because the reconciliation sidecar only needs 51 votes, that sidesteps the Lieberman cockblock.

[gkhouston]

8. A lot of someones have figured it out. The media message has gone from

"healthcare is dead, the Dems are toast!" to "the Dems need to past the Senate bill NOW (and they're still probably toast)".

All the Knowledgeable People are pushing the Senate bill. The details of the House bill are no longer discussed and I can't even remember the last time I heard someone allude to the fact that the House had passed a bill. You'd think the House was nothing more than a dry cleaners where the coffee stains and gravy spots are removed from a bill before the President signs his name. :eyes: