Parliamentary Hurdle Could Thwart Latest Health Care Overhaul Strategy

Washington Examiner's comments on the New York Times article are music to our ears. From Majority Leader Hoyer telling Press Secretary Gibbs there is no date for passage to Sen Conrad telling Democrat leaders to read the language of Reconciliation and what they are doing is not according to rules to the one we like the best -- House Democrats don't trust Obama and the Senate to do what they say they will do.

Watching the Democrats try to pass this bill that 2/3rds of Americans don't want is turning into comedy at times. Speaker Pelosi is cracking her whip trying to get members of the Democrat Conference to walk the plank of defeat on Nov 2, 2010, in order to pass the Obama Healthcare bill so then according to Pelosi we can all know what is in the bill. We have heard spin but that one takes the cake -- pass a bill you don't know what it contains so you can find out what is in the bill? Excuse us for expecting our elected Representatives to read every bill before they vote.

Will House Democrats finally tell their Speaker "NO" or will they get down on their knees and pledge support to their leaders Obama and Pelosi on the Healthcare bill? Stay tuned for the next episode on whether Pelosi and Obama will get their groove back on healthcare.

New York Times -- Parliamentary Hurdle Could Thwart Latest Health Care Overhaul Strategy

A lot of Democrats are looking for a reason not to vote for the president’s health care plan – particularly one that won’t have Rahm Emanuel chasing them into the showers at the House gym.

But the administration can afford zero defections in the House. Because of vacancies, if every Democrat who voted for the House health bill votes for the Senate health bill, the measure would pass on a one-vote majority. No nays have switched to yeas so far, but plenty of yeas have expressed reservations.

One of the big beefs is that the president’s plan calls for the House first passing the Senate bill, then the Senate passing a modification package with 51 votes as a rider to a budget bill, and then passing a third piece of legislation to ban subsidies for elective abortions.

House members dislike this plan because it depends on the Senate and Obama following through, and past experience suggests those are not guaranteed outcomes.
Liberals are afraid of being marooned with the crony capitalism of the Senate bill if the president’s reconciliation plan craps out. Socially conservative/fiscally liberal Democrats of the old model know that the Senate won’t pass any abortion language more stringent than the watered down version which Sen. Ben Nelson embraced (along with $100 million for his state).

As Examiner colleague Susan Ferrechio explains, the complications are such that House Democrats blew off the White House-imposed deadline on March 18, with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sending a special raspberry to ham-handed press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Now, members are waiting for the first of many possible parliamentary rulings on the legislative tripsichore required to advance the plan. The big question being – Can you modify the budget impact of a law that hasn’t become a law?

Writers Robert Pear and David Herszenhorn explain:

“Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, said the reconciliation instructions in last year’s budget resolution seemed to require that Mr. Obama sign the Senate bill into law before it could be changed.
‘It’s very hard to see how you draft, and hard to see how you score, a reconciliation bill to another bill that has not yet been passed and become law,’ Mr. Conrad said. ‘I just advise you go read the reconciliation instructions and see if you think it has been met if it doesn’t become law.’”

Read More on this at The Washington Examiner