I feel like a lot of people are missing the significance of the fact that Senate Democrats aren’t, in fact, planning to “pass the health care bill” through reconciliation. They’ve already passed a comprehensive health reform bill under the regular order. And the House of Representatives passed a basically similar one. What’s poised to happen is for the House to pass the Senate’s version of the bill, and then pass a package of amendments to that bill. What the Senate will take up under reconciliation is the package of amendments.
This distinction has come up in the context of people observing that the right is lying about what’s happening. But I think it’s more important in terms of what happens after the House passes health care. It raises the question, to me, of whether or not Republicans are really going to want to offer unanimous opposition to the reconciliation package. After all, it does basically two things. One is that instead of giving labor unions a special delay on the implementation of the excise tax on health insurance plans it gives that break to everyone. The other is that it rescinds a number of special deals like the “Cornhusker Kickback” that were cut in order to put 60 votes together for the broader reform package. It’s not clear to me, either politically or substantively, why Republicans would want to obstruct either of those sets of changes.
Now it’s clear that right now Republicans want to pretend they’ll oppose that stuff. That’s because they know that Nancy Pelosi can’t get 216 votes in the House for the Senate bill unless her caucus believes the Senate will pass the sidecar package. So Senate Republicans are trying to sow doubt about the sidecar’s fate in order to block health reform in the House. But once health reform does pass that House, that will be irrelevant. So are they going to vote no? If so, why? I doubt Senate Republicans want to end up on the receiving end of ads about special giveaways to Nebraska.
Update
Matt Corley flags an interview in which Senator Lamar Alexander admits to Bill Bennett that the reconciliation sidecar would improve the bill. Alexander also concedes that his opposition to the sidecar is about trying to spook House Democrats rather than about policy: “the Senate Republicans are not going to bail the House Democrats out by fixing a bill we all voted against.”
Bennett praises the strategy:
they’re not going to fix it. The Republicans aren’t going to let you fix it. They want the most stinking mess there is sitting out there, rotting in the sun. So they can then repeal it. Why do they want to make your bill better?
I don’t think this is credible. Once the House has passed the Senate bill, considerations about blocking reform will be off the table. It’ll be a done deal, signed by Barack Obama. We’ll then be on to a new deal that tweaks taxes and rescinds a few corrupt bargains. Is Alexander really going to stand there on the Senate floor and vote to defend them? Will 60 other Senate Republicans? Their strategy for trying to kill the bill in the House requires them to pretend they will, but it doesn’t seem plausible to me.
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