The Speaker and the White House find themselves in this position because of Senator DeMint (R-SC). He insisted that Senator McConnell object to the appointment of the House-Senate Conferees, thus preventing a Conference on the bill.
The Speaker could fix the Senate bill on the House floor by amendment, then pass the Senate bill amended and fixed, but then it would have to go back to the Senate, where it would have to get 60 yes votes, or die. Since it will not get 60 votes ever again in the Senate, it will die if the Speaker tries the amend the Senate bill on the House floor and send it back to the Senate route.
When Senator DeMint (R-SC) denied the Speaker the ability to fix the bill in Conference, he put the Speaker and the White House in their current box. If there had been a House-Senate Conference, then the House could have fixed the bill without a floor vote and the bill could have changed, without having to send it back to the Senate to face 60 vote margins.
Thank God for Sen. Jim DeMint.
I don’t know where you are quoting that from, but it doesn’t sound remotely like reality.
The Democrats refused to do a conference. It wasn’t McConnell blocking it (he can’t block it). They didn’t want a conference because a conference bill would ALSO have to get 60 votes in the senate, and they knew any changes made in conference would therefore destroy the bill.
So they knew their only hope was to pass the Senate bill as-is. But they can’t do that, so they are working on a “reconciliation” bill to fix the senate bill, which they could pass in the senate with 51 votes.
Basically, they know they can’t send the senate bill back to the senate to be fixed, it would take 60 votes, so they are going to “send it back” as a separate bill and use 50 votes.
Except they don’t have the votes for that either, nor can they work out the logistics.
McConnell cites polls supporting public opposition to current bill and, as a remedy, proposes and transparency in creating a new one to make constituents/public more comfortable and informed about the HC reform.
Obama counters by saying everyone wants all the individual items in the bill...what is not mentioned is if those everyones are willing to pay for those things as per the current proposal.
Thanks for adding that. DeMint is a hero, and all too often unsung.