The Hill: Reid Using Reconciliation To Threaten Right-Wing Senate Dems
If Reid doesn't get this done, he won't be Majority Leader for long:
Talk about using budget reconciliation to pass healthcare reform in the Senate has faded from public view, but Democratic leaders continue to hang the threat over centrists in private.
FYI: They're not "centrists" - they're corporate conservatives.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) discussed reconciliation with wavering centrists before an important procedural vote to begin debate on healthcare reform.
On Saturday, Nov. 21, three centrists, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), voted to commence debate, despite heavy pressure from Republicans and conservative groups to oppose it.
Nelson wrote in an op-ed last week that he voted for the motion to avoid the prospect of Reid bringing healthcare legislation to the floor under budget reconciliation, a process with special procedural protections originally intended for legislation to reduce the deficit, such as tax increases or spending cuts.
[...] Under reconciliation, healthcare legislation could pass with a simple majority after a strictly limited floor debate. But lawmakers would have to carve up the bill to eliminate provisions that do not clearly raise revenue or cut spending and therefore would be subject to parliamentary objections. Reid has said that he could pass a government-run health insurance program, known as the public option, under reconciliation.
Personally, I think Reid should use reconciliation anyway. He should get the public option passed, to be implemented immediately, with access to anyone who wants it. The rest can be worked on in another bill or separate bills. I still don't understand why the republicans can't be told to go to hell.
I've been tellin republicans to go to hell for years now, lol!
Didn't Reid use this method before they stipped the health bill of all meaningful items.
It now has been stripped where it is a Health Bill which only benefits the health and Drug companies...
None
...but I'm hoping they'll just pass this crappy thing to get the exchange going without a public option, and then pass another bill after either the 2010 election or the 2012 election to expand Medicare to all, as Howard Dean has always suggested, and make it available on the exchange. After all, the provisions of this bill don't even kick in until 2013, so the national health care exchange won't be available until then. There will still be time to create a public option to put ON the exchange between now and the time the exchange is actually available.
.....and f*ck 'em
all it takes is all of us
This piece of crap they call a health bill gets passed , my insurance will already have been doubled.. And it does nothing for me after it is passed... I will be paying the huge increases they charge me plus more to pick up the different on the coverage of people which they will add..
My prescription drugs doubled this year plus the increase in policy..
Now I am informed the policy will go up $1,200 a year and the co-payments and other deductibles will go up..
Why doesn't the government just take over the health care it is an social program and I do not believe that private corporations should be killing people for their own HUGE profits...
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The answer is congress is just too frighten of not winning the next election through various donations from those same private corporations. The answer is that MSM, for financial and ratings reasons, will not broadcast what actually goes on with these insurance companies. Most people are not going to see any real relief if this bill is passed.
just well paid.
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common sense matters as much as truth
Isn't the consensus that this bill is so far from real reform that it should not be passed? Or are we just trying to save face here?
He can just push through an ACTUAL bill using this method...
I still say Obama needs to do the signing statement thing to make single payer happen no matter what the actual bill says... Dubya did it, right?
"I could give a flying crap about the political process.... We're an entertainment company."
- Glenn Beck - Forbes interview; April 26, 2010
That would be great if Obama's heart and wallet was in it, but I think his donors would prefer something different.
So, once again, isn't it in our bet interests that this raped legislation does not pass?
Here's one blogger's opinion.
Mr. President, Explain To Us Why We Should Even Want This Crappy Healthcare Bill
Because it is an historical piece of BS and the democrats and I believe it will be a photo op for the coming election..
Remember the full BS in the bill will not come to light until 2013 or 2014 AFTER the next two elections....
None
damn good idea!
Preznit Hopey-changey here right? For some strange reason, I don't think that's his sell-out style..
you can either afford Medical Treatment or you can't.
The whole bill is a "Mirage"
Even if there was Universal Health Care Americans would still indulge in the same unhealthy crap eating and lifestyles they always have.
It's a piece of crap and will do more harm than good. Or, any progress is good progress and you have to start with baby steps.
I'm in the first camp.
show some spine for a change. The Repubs under the shrub used reconciliation whenever they felt like it.
But I'm not sure that you're using the correct part of the anatomy to describe what's been missing from the Dems [and their leader(s)].
"Trust no one, Mr. Mulder." - Well-Manicured Man
WTF is the delay? Tell the conservatives to go straight to hell on a rollerskate. It's time to be progressive about one fucking thing already!
to rip off $70 Million boomers who want to be kept alive till 100 years old and how to make them enjoy being ripped off.
lies the rub.
I told him he had two options:
Either kowtow to Conservatives and pass HC reform that does nothing to expand coverage or lower costs.
Or pass "significant" reform with a strong Public Option, Republicans be damned, with the 50+1 votes he already has.
"Explain to me how a Public Option that the ONLY people that can buy into it are the customers no one else wants, lowers costs for everyone else?"
Maybe I got through?
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Finally a smart use of power... and checks and balances, from the "Surrender early, surrender often" man.
Reid was never a “wartime consigliere”. During most of his time in the Senate it was under Repub control where he learned to play from the sidelines. It has been three years since the Dems have had control, and Reid is still playing from the sidelines.
And LBJ had John W. McCormack and Mike Mansfield. No wonder he got stuff done.
. . and reverted back to spineless.
I've lost track.
How can you lose track of "none"?
"Trust no one, Mr. Mulder." - Well-Manicured Man
Big Deal and what do they Have GIVE UP under this Phony threat.
Dems' need to adjust their Motto "We work better at deception in support of Profits for Death" we are the Back Door for Profits.
Sure hope the across the aisle approach helps these self serving sanctamonios Idiots, because we have been sold OUT from day one.
I personally don't give a f*ck any more.
Maybe Reid and Conyers can get together and give a "writing strong worded letter" clinic to their fellow Dems? (but they should be careful, I heard Mrs Conyers is a raging b*tch and he expects her hubby to comply with the curfew). Because, as far as I can tell... other than a couple random letters that went no where, us liberals have gotten zip, zilch, zero, nada from the Dems for the most part of this decade.
I am a firm believer, that if most of the Dem contingent were to start pounding sand... that somehow would be more useful as whatever it is they have been doing thus far.
Rescission and Pre-conditions should be in separate Bills and the Strong Public Option, get it done in Reconciliation, where it can as strong as those who want it to be.
This cuts out the 4, or 5 Conservadems, they have nothing to say no about. And nothing but a yes vote in the reform bill.
We already know the republicans will sit on there hands and never really help Americans, not poor Americans.
Ministerbruce
Sorry to ask this again, but could you please think about writing
...centrist [sic] Democrats...
when you're transcribing these things? Somebody, SOMEPLACE has to take a stand and put an end to this Orwellian speak. People who are against gun control and abortion, against same sex marriage, pro-death penalty, and in favor of tax cuts we can't afford are not 'centrists.' They are conservatives. These people are "CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS." They would feel very comfortable working in Reagan's cabinet, or serving in Gingrich's caucus but for the "D" in front of their name.
People who hold the values I mentioned above have always been labeled what they are, conservatives, until the conservative propaganda machine got to work in the late 1980s in a concerted effort to re-brand those values as 'centrist' values, and thus brand what USED to be LEGITIMATE centrist values as "leftist" or 'liberal' values, and what used to be legitimate liberal values as "FAR LEFT" loonie values.
But that's a lie, and we shouldn't help to perpetuate it. Limited gun control, a progressive tax rate, limited public intervention in the market place, a foreign policy that puts diplomacy over military force, a separation of Church and State, and a neutral government policy towards people's sexual practices ARE CENTRIST VALUES, not leftist or liberal values. Why are they centrist values? Because if you actually ask people about them, you find out that those are the things the majority of the American public is in favor of, and therefore they are centrist by definition.
If a progressive blog like this one is not going to start pushing back against this propaganda, and pushing the Overton Window back where it's supposed to be, WHO WILL?
Or the headline.
A former award-winning journalist and lifelong class warrior, keeping a jaundiced eye on the Washington elite.
Yes I did. How does the headline or the post contradict what I said?
You didn't use [sic] when you transcribed the article, and the rest of what I said was not specifically directed at your post.
OK Yall! git yer hopes up. I'll commence with the dashing your hopes on the rocky shores of life as soon as you think I actually am going to do a damn thing for any of you! - Harry Reid.
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common sense matters as much as truth
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