Senate Can Pass Health With 51 Votes, Van Hollen Says

[cal04]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPg2UfFaCh9c&pos=9

Even if Democrats lose the special election to pick a new Massachusetts senator Tuesday, Congress may still pass health-care overhaul through a process called reconciliation, a top House Democrat said.

That procedure requires 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to prevent Republicans from blocking votes on President Barack Obama’s top legislative priorities. That supermajority is at risk as the Massachusetts race has tightened.

“Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for the process of using reconciliation,” Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said.

“Getting health-care reform passed is important,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “Reconciliation is an option.”

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Then why the fuck did they have to sell out everything good in the bill

in order to get Baucus, Nelson, Snowe, Landrieu & Lieberman on board? If 51 (actually 50 + Biden) is good enough now, why wasn't it good enough then?

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. This is why it sucks having Spineless Harry Reid as "Majority Leader"

Anyone truly worthy of that title would strip all this corporate mandate bullshit completely out in reconciliation, replace it with Ted Kennedy's 2007 Medicare for all bill, and serve notice that anybody who dared to vote against it can go fuck themselves, and if they chaired any committee, consider that job lost. ( Looking right at you, Joe & Baucus)

[havocmom]

3. Good question. They won't answer it though, will they?

They don't want to be in the majority. We expect them to get things done when we give them a majority. They make a lot of fuss about they contention that they STILL can't get anything good done.

Have realized it is time to face the fact: They don't want do do anything good.

If it has a D after it and it's an incumbent, with few exceptions, primary the crap out of it.

[Political Heretic]

7. Because reconciliation is not a magic bullet. It's for budget-specific bills

And not every element of this massive fiasco can be passed through reconciliation, and some of what can be passed can only be "temporarily passed" through reconciliation.

[B Calm]

4. I don't think they'll have 60 votes even if we do win Massachusetts.

They need to pass Medicare For All with 51 votes and the democrats will win every election for 50 years!

[elocs]

5. We've heard this over and over throughout this process and nobody will say definitively if it's true

or not because either it is or it isn't.

[Political Heretic]

6. Reconcilation will make a terrible bill even worse

Because only parts of it can be passed through that process, leaving critical elements left in limbo...

It would be the worst of all possible worlds.

[aquart]

8. Everyone knows that but our congressional Democrats.

[dkf]

9. We can get a better bill through reconciliation with 51 good dems

Than we can get with the extra 9 sell out dems.

[jonathon]

10. You are right.

It is a shame that they didn't go this route in the first place.

[David Zephyr]

11. Then give us Medicare for all.

Problem solved.

[TicketyBoo]

12. When I went to Nelson's

town hall meeting, he said that reconciliation couldn't be used.

It's my understanding that it is only available for budgetary items.

I wish it were possible; I fear it is not.

I also wish they'd do away with the rules requiring anything more than a simple majority.