THE TREATMENT MARCH 2, 2010
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President Obama got a lot of attention for the letter he sent Congress on Tuesday. But a leader of the House Democrats made some news, too.
The leader was Majority Whip Steny Hoyer, who was speaking at his weekly press conference. As Politico has reported, discussion turned to a key procedural dispute between the two chambers: Would the House vote on the Senate bill right away, or would it wait until the Senate had approved amendments to the bill?
The House has been saying it wants the Senate to go first and, during the press conference, Hoyer reiterated that stance. But, instead of ruling out the alternative, as leadership has been doing for the last month, Hoyer merely said that going first would be "difficult." Then he explained:
Members want some assurance that those items they have problems with are, in fact, modified before they vote for the Senate bill. I don't know that it's impossible, but it's difficult.
Note the distinction: Waiting for the Senate to give assurance it will vote is not the same as waiting for the Senate to vote.
This isn't a shocker. On Sunday, during an interview on CBS "Face the Nation," Hoyer hinted at this shift. But his wording was vague, leaving the meaning of his statement ambiguous.
Not this time. A senior House aide confirms that Hoyer's use of the word "assurance" was intentional--i.e., that House leadership would be willing to hold its vote first as long as it felt confident the Senate would subsequently approve the amendments. Those amendments will go through the reconciliation process, where a simple majority is sufficient to pass legislation.
And what might qualify as "assurance"? The aide suggested the word of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be enough, although other staff on Capitol Hill still talk about the possibility of collecting the signatures of 51 Senate Democrats to a letter promising to pass the amendments.
If, indeed, the House agrees to vote on the Senate bill before the Senate takes up the amendments, it would remove a major obstacle to passing health care reform. Taking up the amendments first would have raised significant political and procedural hurdles. Among other things, it's difficult to write a bill to amend a law that hasn't passed yet.
All of this sets the stage for a Wednesday announcement at the White House, where, according to administration sources, Obama will call on Congress to give him an up-or-down vote on health care reform.
If the House goes first, that's exactly what will happen. And the prospects of that vote being a "yes" are getting better by the day.
3 comments
Political experts say that House members and Senators who voted for the bill will do no more political harm by voting for final passage, since they are already saddled with an unpopular (for now) bill. I would also remind them what happended when the Clinton reform failed passage: supporters of the reform got blamed for precisely what the Clinton reform bill would have prevented, namely, managed care. Many may forget that the Clinton bill would have required employers to offer all three basic types of health insurance (indemnity, PPO, and HMO), this at a time when managed care penetration was very low (single digit). Once the Clinton bill failed passsage, managed care penetration exploded (as the supporters of the Clinton bill had warned). But who got the blame for this (people learned to dislike managed care very quickly): supporters of the Clinton bill! So don't be surprised, if the current version of HCR fails passage, supporters are blamed for the explosion in insurance rates, employers reducing plan benefits or dropping plans altogether, and even worse adverse selection tactics of the insurers. Just as the public associated all things health care, especially the things that are unpopular, with supporters of Clinton HCR, the public will once again associate all things health care with supporters of current HCR.
- raylward
March 3, 2010 at 7:37am
yeah ray, I agree, but I don't care who the people blame it on, the suffering they will endure they will have rightfully earned. We get the government we deserve. If the Democrats can't pass this one little hurdle (a one time straight up or down vote in the House) then screw them. The best reason for the House to vote first is that when it passes Health care reform will be law, and the Democrats would have won the war, everything that happens in the Senate will be simply mopping up, fixing what needs to be fixed. I could give a rats ass what procedural roadblocks Republicans put up, they would have lost and they will know it. Hell, I don't even think Democrats will have to use reconciliation in the Senate afterwards, are Republicans really going to uphold the Nebraska exemption, or the Florida Medicare advantage, etc.
- blackton
March 3, 2010 at 10:48am
I agree completely with Blackton. 1000%. Once the war is won by passage of the Senate bill, reconciliation will be irrelevant as unnecessary. It should even be possible to improve the situation beyond what is currently envisioned as the trade-off for including some of the Republican ideas. They should have packaged every single Republican idea they were willing to do as a single amendment to be approved if and only if the Republicans agreed to forego the filibuster on the core legislation. We have had nine months of wasted time and political capital due to political ineptitude, in particular Obama's naïve belief that he can conciliate Republicans. They can either be ignored, co-opted, bought, or beaten to a bloody pulp (see, e.g., Senator James Bunning) with their own opposition. There are no other options. I hope Obama has learned his lesson. This has been far more costly for the Democratic party than it needed to be.
- roidubouloi
March 3, 2010 at 11:01am