MSNBC did an excellent job of summarizing the “end game” of health care legislation. According to NBC’s Ken Stricklund,

Democrats must clear three hurdles in order to get to a final version of the health-care bill that most legislators in their party can live with.

Here is the showdown at the O.K. Corral:

  1. The House must pass the Senate bill “as is” including the backroom sweetheart deals like the “Cornhusker Kickback” and controversial items like mandated coverage and federally funded abortion. (Yes it is in there- just ask the 12 pro life Democrats in the House who are choking on it right now). Keep in mind that once this first step is completed, the Senate bill is sent to the President and it becomes law. Yep- the bill with sweetheart deals, mandated coverage (but no public option to keep the insurance companies in line) and federally funded abortion.
  2. The House must then pass a “Reconciliation Bill” to deal with the offensive (to them) items in the Senate bill. That reconciliation bill would be sent to the Senate with “hopes” it would pass by the required 51 votes (not the magic 60 votes normally needed to avoid a filibuster).
  3. The Senate must then pass the “Reconciliation Bill” as sent to them. Of course there is no incentive for them to do so, since they got “their bill” passed. House Democrats know this, and that is why there are still not enough votes (as of today) to get it passed.

There are many reasons to hate this bill, whether you are on the “Right” or the “Left” or somewhere in the middle like me. Pick a reason and call your Representative and beg them to vote “No” on this bill. I will be calling and emailing my Congressman Tim Walz.

I predict that this bill will pass the House, and then a feeble attempt will be made to pass a reconciliation bill. If a reconciliation bill (a big “if”) passes the House, it will die an ugly “sausage making” death in the Senate for many reasons. These reasons will include:

  • no incentive to pass it (what is the upside)
  • parliamentary reasons (a non partisan parliamentarian will decide what is allowed)
  • actual disagreement over parts of the bill that the House sent them

I believe this was a noble cause, and had the “party in power” been more transparent about the cost, stuck to principal and not given in to Washington Style Deal Making, and owned this bill like brave adults… maybe they could have convinced the country that they deserved a chance to make sweeping change. No one with a brain actually believes this thing is just one trillion dollars. And no one with a soul likes the secrecy and deal making that went into this bill.

So the Democrats come down to the end and they have to own the process as well as the outcome, or they have to “man up” and walk away from this. I never liked the Republicans for running from this issue when they were in power. But I like the Democrats even less for their Chicago Style Politics. Again they say with their actions that they believe “the end justifies the means.”

Not to me.