1. Legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate.
2. Democrats are threatening to use reconciliation to pass health-care reform.
3. Reconciliation has never been used for health-care legislation.
4. Reconciliation has never been used for legislation this substantial.
5. Reconciliation has only been used for bipartisan bills.
6. As a senator, Obama himself was opposed to reconciliation.
7. The referee is biased.
The arguments are so specious that it takes Newsweek all of 150 to 200 words to debunk each.
In fairness, they also discuss one argument they say Republicans should be making against reconciliation, but aren’t. Read the full article here.
5 of Newsweek’s 7 points are very sound.
#4 is bogus. You can rationalize all day long by saying the other guy did it first. The fact is that reconciliation was invented so a budget bill, critical to federal operations, would not be held up causing government shutdowns. What about health care reform has to do with near-term government operations?
By the way, gotta love how the GOP had to resort to reconciliation in 1995 to pass a balanced budget bill, the bill that is so often used to describe how Democrats (Clinton) was so fiscally responsible. Clinton was. The Democrats in Congress wanted nothing of it.
#6 is questionable. Obama’s points against using a simple majority sure seem to me like they were made in principle — a principle he is gladly willing to abandon when it comes to his major legislation.
Another thing you gotta love is how a tax cut — the absence of pulling cash out of citizens’ pockets to the federal government — is referred to as a “cost”.
“#4 is bogus. You can rationalize all day long by saying the other guy did it first. The fact is that reconciliation was invented so a budget bill, critical to federal operations, would not be held up causing government shutdowns. What about health care reform has to do with near-term government operations? ”
Absolutely false right-wing propaganda.
1) the above is a strawman: #4 has nothing to do with “the other guy did it first”. This is an empty, dishonest diversion.
2) regardless of what reconciliation was “invented” for- and let me say that your long chain of factually incorrect statements make me doubt the reason you provide without citation (ie “to pass critical legislation to prevent government shutdown)- the central point of the rebuttal provided in #4 is sound: reconciliation has been used multiple times (they are actually listed in the linked article) for major health care initiatives. That is a fact, and it is unarguable (yet you try to argue it anyway). Again, what we have here is a strawman joined with a misrepresentation joined with a factually inaccurate statement.
I know I sound like a broken record when I say “you’re not a moderate”…but that’s because you sound like a broken record with your [insert paper-thin conservative talking points here].
You make me laugh.
I take issue with two of Newsweek’s points. I agree that 5 are sound. And I’m not a moderate. At the end of the day, theoko, I take solace in knowing that me and my ilk will decide each election until the day I die. Your base and the other base will simply vote like droids, being elated when moderates side with your candidate and devastated when they don’t.
I love being in a position of power.
In addition to Newsweek’s point that reconciliation is meant to only be used for budget-related bills, there is another reason I’d think the Democrats would want to get this done via a veto-proof majority. A health care bill that can be passed via simple majority today could easily be heavily modified through a simple majority in 3 years (well before the bill really does anything), and the GOP would be able to claim they are simply following the same rules that were used to pass it.
If this passed by 60 votes, the GOP would look hypocritical if they attempted to “undo” it with a smaller majority, IMO.
What base would I be part of? I’ve voted for Arne Carlson and Jesse Ventura, though never a Republican since Carlson. How can I be part of any “base” when I don’t march in lockstep with anyone? I’m much less a “droid”. I suppose ad hominem attacks are all you have to defend your “points”, which are nothing shy of right-wing talking points devoid of even a scrap of analysis or skepticism. If I apply analysis or skepticism, I suddenly become a member of some “base” and am a “droid”.
Next time, try facts and reason, I can get ad hominem attacks from just about any conservative- I don’t need to go to you for that.
I agree with you that the “what about what your guy did?” argument is pointless. More often than not, it’s just another way to change the subject. I do, however, think that “when did you come to this conclusion, and why?” are fair questions.
What is really funny is the Democrats argued the EXACT SAME THING when Republicans used reconciliation during the Bush administration. They are both hypocrites. Throw all of them out of office!
Please cite your source for this EXACT SAME THING.
#4 is bogus. You can rationalize all day long by saying the other guy did it first. The fact is that reconciliation was invented so a budget bill, critical to federal operations, would not be held up causing government shutdowns.”
How the hell did Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy prevent a government shut down?
It didn’t. As per the usual, “dan” the “man” is lying through his teeth.
You guys don’t freakin get it. Good god!
I say: “You can rationalize all day long by saying the other guy did it first.”. Then you say “How the hell did Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy prevent a government shut down?” Hmmm… You are, indeed, rationalizing by saying the other guy did it first.
Reconciliation has been used errantly many times. I don’t defend the other times it was used for policy reasons, and I won’t defend this one. You seem to assume that I’m a Bush apologist. Bush was wrong many times. I expected more from Obama but I guess he is just another one of them.
Your rationale here is quite amusing. It basically is saying “We can defend this, because it is no worse than what was done by those ignorant and incompetent guys who we can’t stand.”
Is that really the level you are benchmarking yourselves to? After reading the chorus of disagreement with Bush around here, I’d expect a higher standard from you, too.
But if your rationale is going to be “it’s no worse than Bush”, I guess I can just disagree with both sides.
Somewhere there has to be a group of real public servants waiting to serve.
“Your rationale here is quite amusing. It basically is saying “We can defend this, because it is no worse than what was done by those ignorant and incompetent guys who we can’t stand.””
No, that’s the recurring strawman you keep tossing out to avoid having to defend your ideas.
OK, theoko. Give me sounds reasons to use a budget bill procedure to enact major health reform, without talking about how the other guys do it too.
I have yet to hear convincing arguments.
I have one against it: Because reforming health policy is not a budget discussion. No?
“OK, theoko. Give me sounds reasons to use a budget bill procedure to enact major health reform, without talking about how the other guys do it too.”
Because the Senate rules are set up in such a way that require a degree of comity for the body to function at all. That degree of comity no longer exists.
The minority party has used an UNPRECEDENTED number of cloture votes, lock-step opposition, holds, oppositions to unanimous consent, etc. in order to completely bog the Senate down.
In addition, the bulk of the health care bill has already passed the Senate once on a 60-40 vote. The entirety of the legislation cannot honestly be thought of as having passed solely through reconciliation.
Reconciliation is meant for budget bills. There is not getting around that.
Again, your rationale for doing this is because of something the other guy is doing.
“Reconciliation is meant for budget bills. There is not getting around that.”
The bill has already passed 60-40. It is not being “reconciled” through, just the differences between the House and Senate versions are being “reconciled”.
There is no getting around that.
To wit:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-the-heck-is-reconciliation-2010-03-02?pagenumber=2
“Yet many Democrats in the House have problems with the Senate bill. They might not vote in favor of it unless the leadership agrees to some changes. It is those changes that would be considered in a separate bill under reconciliation in the Senate and under regular rules in the House. That second bill could only pertain to budget items, such as taxes and spending. That bill would require simple majorities of both chambers - and also the signature of the president — to become law.”
Here is how I defend it, I guess. Majority rules democracy is what the founders intended and 60 vote cloture is idiotic.
The bottom line is, once health care passes, no one will even remember how it passed. Who the hell even knew what reconciliation was before this year?
Fair enough.
A simple majority can enact health reform on a budget bill. A simple majoirty can also correct the whole thing in a couple years.
Perhaps that is the way it was all meant to work.
The Republicans are correct on one thing though. It will be harder t repeal something once people get those benefits. That’s why a simple expansion of medicare and fixing the funding of it would have been best. Medicare has much, much higher satisfaction rates than private insurance, and you could open it up tomorrow. Fix the funding of it and it would be great.
Alex -
Medicare reimburses physicians and hospitals at about 95% of the cost of care. Not the price on the bill, the actual cost. That shortfall is made up by private insurances,who reimburse at above cost, or in other words with a slight positive margin.
What would happen if, instead of 30% of Americans being covered by the shortfall program Medicare, it was 70%?
I have a guess:
1. You’d see a movement to concierge medicine, where many of our best doctors take a limited number of private pay patients only, and provide sky-high service
2. You’d see several hospitals close. Which ones closed would depend on which Congressmen had the most influence in writing the Medicare payment regs. As it stands today, it would be many rural hospitals closing.
3. Many doctors would not go into the field, starting with the lowest paid specialities that already have low margins — OB/Gyn, Family Practice, and Pediatrics.
4. Few hospitals and fewer doctors + more people with perceived free care means waits, lines and rationing.
I’m not a Bachmann-esque nut. Just someone who is close to the healthcare industry and sees a logical progression of a subpar healthcare system with more government involvement.
Patients need to ration their own care. That will happen when patients have more of a stake in the game, not less. See Bill George’s commentary in the Strib yesterday. There is a nonpartisan business leader, known for his high ethics, taking a very innovative and effective stance on this issue.
Folks:
After reading the Newsweek article I posted a response and accidentally put it on Jeff’s most recent rant on the Republicans on reconcillation. One thing I will highlight what I wrote.
On item number six it was showed that Obama wasn’t opposed to reconcillation because that was about judges and how the Republicans were trying to create a new standard.
Lets go through this slowly. The Republicans were saying that the standard was still the same. The appointee for judge need a majority vote to become a judge. The issue was that the democrats were invoking the clouture rule to stop the vote on judical appointments that they didn’t like because once they were voted on they will be confirmed!
Obama was opposed to the stopping the use of clouture on judges. Will if it was a matter of life and die for the democrats to able to stop the vote of single judges because they could influence the lifes of all Americans than shouldn’t we apply that to the health care bill? After all this does determine how every single American lives and eventually dies?
#6 which Newsweek didn’t refute is proof by itself that we should have a sixty vote clouture on the health care bill.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Where in the Constitution does it say that a supermajority is necessary to pass a bill?