Reply #5: Reconciliation has certain problems

[liberalpragmatist]

Anything passed through reconciliation has to be germaine to the budget. A public option could probably pass, but the insurance regulations could not, nor could the insurance exchanges.

Also, anything that is ruled not directly related to the budget violates the "Byrd Rule," which then needs 60 votes to be waived. And if it's not deficit neutral, the whole thing expires in 10 years.

Now, Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer have argued we should have gone through reconciliation anyway and that we could probably have gotten the bill passed. Tom Harkin and Russ Feingold, however, have said that they didn't believe in reconciliation because they didn't think you'd get a good bill out of it. You'd get some pieces, and maybe a weak public option, but nothing else.

Also, the committee in charge of preparing a reconciliation bill would be Kent Conrad's, and he's hardly a progressive champion. Plus, he opposed the public option - he said he wouldn't filibuster or vote against a bill with one, but he didn't favor that component.