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Posted on 11/12/2014 7:40:12 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The bill’s destined to be vetoed, of course, but unless the reconciliation process ends up eating lots of time, there’s really no harm to it. One conservative activist told Politico he’s worried that if the GOP uses the same arcane procedural move to undo O-Care that Democrats used to pass it, Obama will turn around and whine that Republicans are doing the same thing Democrats did when they were in power. But … why would he say that? If he means to imply that reconciliation is a dubious strong-arm tactic, then he’ll be forced to explain why it was okay for his party to use it to pass the law in the first place. Why would he want to make a by-any-means-necessary argument for ObamaCare when the House GOP’s poised to make an example of Jon Gruber for the very same attitude? “Reconciliation’s only cool when we do it” would be a lovely complement to Gruber’s “we had to pull a fast one on you schmucks” tribute to health-care reform.
Reconciliation is a silly symbolic gesture under the circumstances but some GOP base voters will consider it a moral victory to put a bill on Obama’s desk, so there you go. But there’s a catch, notes David Drucker at the Examiner. Actually, several catches:
“That will be one avenue for us,” incoming Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters on Wednesday, when asked where reconciliation fit into Republicans’ plans to dismantle Obamacare. “Of course, in order to do that, we have to pass a budget, which hasn’t happened since 2009.”…
As Cornyn noted, repealing portions of Obamacare using reconciliation is only possible if 51 Senate Republicans (and 218 House Republicans) can agree on a budget resolution. Passing a budget is what makes a reconciliation vehicle possible. That means some of the GOP’s biggest budget hawks — those who often break with their colleagues and oppose spending bills as insufficiently austere — will have to support a consensus budget plan…
Additionally, the reconciliation tool can only be used once, in concert with passing a fiscal 2015-16 budget proposal. Using the maneuver to dismantle Obamacare necessarily means it cannot be used to overcome presumed Democratic filibusters to pass other conservative priorities that have tax and spending implications, entitlement reform among them…
“There’s going to be open and vibrant debate over how to use reconciliation,” a GOP lobbyist predicted. “Leadership is going to have to educate members over what can and can’t be done.”
Could McConnell find 51 votes to pass a budget resolution? You’d think that’d be easy now that the GOP controls a majority in the Senate but it’s harder than it sounds. Yesterday I noted that with so many red- and purple-state Democrats willing to make nice with Republicans over the next few years, McConnell might have as many as 63 votes for popular bills. I don’t know if any of those Dems would vote for a budget bill that involves repealing ObamaCare, though. They need to retain some goodwill with the Democratic base; voting for a resolution to nuke O-Care, even if it’s sure to be vetoed, might be a betrayal too far. Could McConnell find 51 votes from his own Republican caucus, then, assuming that Cassidy will win in Louisiana next month and give him 54 seats? I’m not so sure of that either. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio will all be eager to show GOP primary voters how conservative they are by resisting a budget bill that’s sure to have things in it that tea partiers won’t like. If McConnell loses them, will Mike Lee, Tim Scott, Tom Cotton, and Ben Sasse all vote with leadership? If even one of them defects, how does McConnell get to 51?
What Cornyn (and McConnell) are saying in the excerpt here, I think, is that Cruz and his conservative comrades have a choice to make if they’re serious about repealing O-Care via reconciliation. They can either abandon this reconciliation push and be purists on the budget bill or abandon purity on the budget bill in the name of facilitating reconciliation and repeal. What move will Cruz make? (Probably not the same one that Paul makes, I’d bet.) Unless McConnell somehow gets to 52 without him, his choice will matter.
Just do it
that’s how they passed it....
So what will the insurance landscape look like if congress or the supremes do away with ocare?
The free market will take care of it.
LOL.
> then he’ll be forced to explain why it was okay for his party to use it to pass the law in the first place.
Forced by who? Obama is going to say/do whatever he pleases. Just use the reconcilliation and get the fight started.
“Just use the reconcilliation and get the fight started.”
Absolutely. Start the engine. Won’t get anywhere without starting.
Man that would be sweet justice. I’d do it just for spite, then I’d write the legislation to make sure it could never be used again while flipping them the bird
Gee maybe the insurance companies can go back to assessing risk based on actual facts and grandpas won’t have to pay their share of pregnancy and abortion costs.........
This bill is a travesty of historic proportions and must be sweated into the politcal trash bin as soon as possible.
That would be most excellent. Wonder if they have the ‘nads or the spine for it
Purity on a budget bill doesn't count for chit unless BarryCare is repealed.
Shed BarryCare while the iron is hot and people will go along with the reconcillation approach and then build support for the next budget being something that sets the country back on an even keel.
The rino weenies didn’t get voted in to sit on their hands until 2016. Have the nads to do what is necessary to kill Obamacare. If they can’t do that
while the public is ready for it, then it will show everyone that they are fully inept.
". . . then I’d write the legislation to make sure it could never be used again . . .Any honest reading of the Constitution would have the damn bill thrown out already because it's a money bill and didn't originate in the House as "reconciliation" means just that, to reconcile something with something else, not to erase all of the original and substitute something else.
IOW, the way BarryCare was passed is unconstitutional and always has been unconstitutional. The lame excuse that's kept the USSC from throwing out BarryCare is that the USSC hides behind their not making rules for Congress but letting Congress make rules for itself.
Who in the Senate or House filed a suit about this that would have made an opening for the USSC to intervene by classifying something as being an unconstitutional breech of the rights of the House? No one that I've heard of, at least no one with standing (i.e. a member of the House or Senate).
It’s only fair.
It’s only fair. Deem it repealed and shove that nasty witch Pelosi in an oven where she belongs.
The states each have their own set of insurance regulations, I seriously doubt that they have repealed all of their public policy, so it will likely all go back to the way it was in each state.
The Republicans will likely enact "portability" "association health plans" and "interstate competition".
That's what I'd think. Keep it simple. Just drop the mandate. Let people who like Obamacare be allowed to keep those plans. As people get to choose policies that only cover things they want, or choose to not be insured, the insurance companies will compete for their business.
The problem becomes people who don't pay their bills. What would be wrong with for-profit clinics that offered just basic care, the most inexpensive solutions? Private enterprise will develop reasonably priced health solutions when the demand is there.
I think back to when this mess started. It was with HMOs that were supposed to keep us healthier and thus we'd never get really bad diseases. It didn't work that way. When people had to pay for everything except catastrophic illness, there was much more scrutiny and self control about spending money on medical needs. With the HMOs, it seems that they found something wrong with everyone, wasted all kinds of money on "wellness" and spend more time testing people who aren't sick than curing those who are.
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