Rockefeller (D-WV) dismisses idea of reconciliation for health care bill

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

--snip--
Rockefeller, who previously had talked about reconciliation as a possible route, joked Tuesday that he must have been “drunk” at the time.

“Reconciliation is a nonstarter,” he said. “It doesn’t work. ... It opens itself up to an endless, unstoppable number of amendments, which they will have lined up, 800 amendments, whatever it is.”

Reconciliation, which would allow Democrats to pass a health care overhaul with a simple majority, limits debate to just 20 hours on the floor but does not limit the number of amendments that can be offered. If the 20 hours have expired, the Senate would enter into a round-the-clock “vote-a-rama” on amendments until they are all voted on.

Rockefeller also acknowledged that Republicans could play “mischief” by forcing difficult votes that could hurt Democrats politically.

--snip--
http://www.rollcall.com/news/40682-1.html

[Jennicut]

1. It should be a last option only.

We already had one disgusting amendment added in the House bill, I can't imagine how many horrible ones would be offered during reconciliation.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. The bigger problem I would see with reconciliation is pairing it with the House.

We've already seen how hard it is to get to 218 on the version we already have in the House. The problem is that for the Senate to pass it via reconciliation, it's going to have to be a much, much more "robust" public option to justify doing it that way and get it past the parliamentarian. I didn't used to doubt that we could get a more robust public option through on the House side, but I sure do now. Even if we were to wait out the 800 amendments - which would not be easy - I'm not sure we could make it happen in the House.

[damntexdem]

8. Get it through the Senate first.

Then worry about the conference committee. Then worry about getting the resulting bill through both houses. First steps first.

[Eric J in MN]

3. Better to vote on 800 amendments than to drop the public option. NT

NT

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. Do you realize how long that would take?

Say it takes 20 minutes to complete each roll call vote. That's 16,000 minutes, also known as 267 hours, also known as more than 11 full days. Even if you force them to be in session for 16 hours per day (which is not altogether feasible for a body with many 70+ year old members), that's 17 days worth of voting. I'm not sure it's as feasible as you think.

On edit: I'm also pretty sure they can force the complete reading of every amendment. So the 20 minute estimate for each amendment is probably very conservative.

[Dr Robert]

6. the Repukes could never keep it up for that long. Public pressure to end it would mount

until they quit out of fear of a backlash

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

7. Since when have they cared about backlash? (nt)

[WI_DEM]

10. Public Pressure? I've yet to see much public pressure on our side of the health

debate. The passion seems to be on the tea baggers and there group.

[Eric J in MN]

9. The health care bill will affect Americans for decades.

It's OK by me if Senators have to spend an extra 17 days (or twice that or whatever) to make it a good bill.

[Cha]

5. kr