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NPR highlights history of reconciliation in health care legislation

February 24, 2010 8:52 am ET

From the February 24 edition of NPR's Morning Edition:

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From NPR's timeline of using reconciliation in health care bills:

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    • Author by nerzog (February 24, 2010 8:55 am ET)
      3  
      The Democrats might as well go for it. We know that the Troglodytes are going to spew lies from now until November anyway, no matter what happens with Health Care Reform.
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      • Author by Dradeeus (February 24, 2010 8:58 am ET)
        2  
        Also, every single interviewed politician, right and left, has stated they have no expectation of any bipartisanship whatsoever.
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        • Author by nerzog (February 24, 2010 9:04 am ET)
          2  
          Exactly. The Republitoads made that clear from the beginning.
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          • Author by Invent a Scandal (February 24, 2010 10:56 am ET)
               
            You mean the "nuculer" option has already been used this many times!!!
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            • Author by joshschwa (February 26, 2010 1:13 pm ET)
                 
              If only this could be generalized as you are doing. This bill is 2400 pgs of legislation that would grant the government an unprescedented amount of power. Thes other reconciliation measures were much more specific, can you imagine adding to this list all the measures in this bill it would take a thousand paragraphs. This bill as it stands on 22610 is unconstitutional in at least two ways; 1)the legislative department does not have the authority through the commerce clause in the constitution to mandate that peaople buy a good or service(imagine the can of worms this opens down the road) 2)the penalty for not buying insurance is a capitation tax and as layed out is not apportioned according to the most rescent census. The supreme court will uphold the constitution because unlike slimy liberals they still believe in it.
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    • Author by Sharpe (February 24, 2010 9:12 am ET)
      5  
      This is just a GOP talking point. The GOP used reconciliation at least five times during the bush administration. Reconciliation is far from a nuclear option. In fact, it is really just a majority vote. The "nuclear option" rhetoric was actually what the democrats called reconciliation at one point when they were against the legislation, it isn't even the GOP that invented this ridiculous term. It is the constant threat of filibuster and not reconciliation that has become the nuclear option. It threatens the very foundation of AMERICAN democracy by not allowing the majority to vote for a bill. What is historic is not the use of reconciliation but the number of times the GOP has threatened a filibuster which is significantly more than at any other point in history. Just another thing that the white house and democrats have failed to explain to the public in simple terms in order to take advantage and get the upper hand on the situation. This debate has been defined from the beginning by the obstructionist party and continues to be up to today and they have used blatant lies and falsehoods as well as ludicrous exaggerations to do so with the democrats failing to counter on almost every turn. i think obama MUST be blamed for this chronic failure as he continues to search for non-existent bipartisanship even as the bill currently stands as the most centrist healthcare reform we could actually get without it becoming a republican bill. The current bill is almost identical to a republican bill proposed during the clinton administration as a counter to that white house bill.
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      • Author by rumpleteasermom (February 24, 2010 10:21 am ET)
        3  
        Personally, I think the problem lies with the change to how a filibuster works. In the beginning a filibuster meant someone had to be there on the floor of the senate speaking the entire time. EVERYTHING came to a halt. This thing we do now is too easy to invoke so it is being abused. When it came with consequences, lawmakers thought twice before using it.
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        • Author by Sharpe (February 24, 2010 11:29 am ET)
          2  
          You may be right on the money there. I just know this has to change - there have been something like 180 threats of a fillibuster and there are hundreds upon hundreds of bills passed by the house that are just waiting on the floor of the senate collecting dust instead of actually regulating the financial industry, creating jobs and doing what congress is supposed to be doing. Its not even the republicans being complete obstructionists, it is the actual rules of the senate because a majority rule in the senate right now instead of this ludicrous requirement of 60 votes would mean healthcare reform would be passed probably with a public option and there would like also be some significant financial regulation waiting on the presidents desk right now. This is a far cry from the senate we learned about in grade school - inept, corrupt, incompetent, flooded with special interests, bought off by huge corporations - things have to change and not just changing the filibuster as campaign funding and lobbying is probably the most detrimental aspect of the senate right now blocking real progress. Leiberman might as well be the senator from big insurance as he doesnt have a clue nor does he care what connecticut wants. Goldman sachs seems to be running the entire white house via the treasury department. Every day i wonder who geitner and summers think they are helping by blocking reform so tenaciously, certainly not america and most likely not wall street either in the end. Why does this president continue to support the very same regulators (bernanke and geitner) that were miserably failures at regulation in the yrs leading up to one of the biggest financial crisis this nation has ever seen - its not so far-fetched to think obama himself is in goldman sachs pocket. They were his biggest campaign contributor by a LONG SHOT and after the citizen's united decision, goldman could likely be a president if they put all of their resources behind it that could actually beat obama.
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          • Author by John Paradox (February 24, 2010 1:22 pm ET)
               
            IIRC, on Rachel Maddow's show, she noted 290 House-passed bills that are held up in the Senate.
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        • Author by joshschwa (February 26, 2010 1:35 pm ET)
             
          The fillibuster is the best procedural practice in the legislature. The founders laid out a system that keeps the majority from having too much power. They did not create a system that is speedy so to allow the best ideas(regardless of party) to come forward and be incorporated. "Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions." (James Madison) The current healthcare bill is tyrrany of the ugliest sort.
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      • Author by joshschwa (February 26, 2010 1:42 pm ET)
           
        And Clinton used it as well. The process is not important it's the substance. This bill is unconstitutional and our own president had a hand in crafting it.
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    • Author by epkklk851 (February 24, 2010 9:16 am ET)
      3  
      Reconciliation, another example of sanctimonious, Republican hypocrisy. It was good enough for us to push our way through, but don't dare let the Democrats use it.
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    • Author by Dem02020 (February 24, 2010 9:38 am ET)
      5  

      As comprehensive and informative an item as any that appears here, thank you very much Media Matters.

      Maybe someone should email a link to this story, to Senators McConnell and Kyl.

      So that's an accounting of previous uses of the Budget Reconciliation process, it should help to have a description of the process, which also explains the word "Reconciliation" in that process.

      What will happen is that the Senate's Health Care Bill will go to a conference of House and Senate members, where along with the House's version of this Bill, they will work on and report out a single, "reconciled" Bill, that then goes back to the Senate and the House for their approval (or disapproval, as the case may be).

      But once the "reconciled" Bill gets to the Senate, it will then be subject to merely a simple majority support for passage (and let's never forget, that all Bills the Senate passes are subject to only a simple majority: it's only "cloture" of debate that requires the super-majority).

      Why is the Senate's strange and troublesome (and anti-democratic) Rule 22 super-majority "cloture motion" bypassed in this Budget Reconciliation process?

      Because then those minority of Senators refusing to "invoke cloture" would in effect be "vetoing" the House of Representative's Bill also, the "reconciled" legislation having their (or their conferees) approval.

      It's bad enough that a minority of Senators can gridlock and obstruct the U.S. Senate, but do they have that power over the House too?

      Enter the Budget Reconciliation process...

      It's not just a good idea, it's the Law, and it enables a Democracy to make Law, notwithstanding the corrupt efforts of a minority of Senate Republicans, chief among them Senators McConnell and Kyl.
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      • Author by joshschwa (February 26, 2010 1:39 pm ET)
           
        Corrupt senate republicans are trying to preserve the constitution whilst your progressive agenda seeks to destroy it. Any service that costs another man to lose his financial freedom(universal health care) is not a right guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. A right is something free and unalienable not a handout.
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    • Author by sanderson139823 (February 24, 2010 6:03 pm ET)
         
      Do any of the changes in that timeline match the sweeping changes to health care included in the bill Obama/Reid/Pelosi are trying to push through?

      Also, it seems awfully clear that the Dems. are not only trying to circumvent the filibuster via reconciliation, but the will of the people, whom polls have shown to be strongly opposed to the current bill.

      This isn't just a "Budget Reconciliation," this bill represents a fundamental change to our health care system, which accounts for ~1/6 of our total economy.

      Is it technically allowed? Yep, they're not breaking any laws by doing it.

      Is it a sound decision and representative of what the American people want? No, I don't think it is.
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