The Health Care Nuclear Option, also known as reconciliation, is being considered by liberal politicians to insure that Obamacare makes it to the President’s desk by Easter. According to The New York Times, the plan is to have the President submit reconciliation legislation to be posted on the internet this weekend. The legislation will be crafted in a manner so that it can be passed using special reconciliation procedures created solely to enact laws to reduce the deficit as part of the annual budget. The next step is for the President to conduct his half day bipartisan summit at the Blair House on February 25th. With that faux-bipartisan stunt over with, the President will be free to pass legislation in a partisan manner that tosses aside the regular rules of business in the Senate.
Here is how the NYT writes it up:
President Obama will put forward comprehensive health care legislation intended to bridge differences between Senate and House Democrats ahead of a summit meeting with Republicans next week, senior administration officials and Congressional aides said Thursday.
The legislation is being crafted in a way to allow for partisans in the House and Senate to pass the legislation without any support from Republicans and it a way that avoids a 60 vote threshold of a filibuster in the Senate.
Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.
Yet again, the Obama Administration has tossed aside transparency and has crafted this legislation behind closed doors. Not even all Congressional Democrats have been looped into this secret proposal:
During a conference call on Wednesday night, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, that she could not agree to a proposal until rank-and-file lawmakers returned from a weeklong recess. A House Democratic caucus meeting is set for Monday evening. … Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the president would “take some of the best ideas” from the House and the Senate and “put them into a framework.”
The plan is for the House would pass the Senate version of Obamacare and use the special reconciliation process as a means to amend it. This special procedure is clearly an abuse of the reconciliation procedure and helps liberals to toss aside the filibuster in the Senate. As Charlotte Davis explained earlier:
Reconciliation was not intended to be the procedure of last resort when other means fail, and to do so would be a complete abuse of reconciliation rules. Some may bring up other examples of massive legislation passed through reconciliation bills as proof that using reconciliation bills to explode government spending is okay, but past instances of wrongdoing does not make it acceptable to add $2 trillion dollars worth of health care spending.
This is also a means to empower Vice President Joe Biden to act as President of the Senate during this debate so that he can ignore Republicans who will be outraged by the process. The election of Scott Brown to the Senate in liberal Massachusetts was a strong referendum against Obamacare. Add that to the polling that indicates that a large majority of Americans are opposed to the President’s health care proposal (see Real Clear Politics) and one can understand why Congress was backing away from the proposal.
But The New York Times article indicates that the Obama Administration and liberal Members of Congress are willing to use the Nuclear Option to get the unpopular bill through the House and Senate.
On February 25th, the White House has proposed a bipartisan, half-day televised summit on health care. It is unclear as to whether this is a publicity stunt by the Obama Administration or a good faith effort to negotiate with Republicans to come up with a bipartisan health care reform bill. The Washington Post reports today many Republicans are pushing back and urging the White House to scrap Obamacare as a precondition to any negotiation. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel objecting to the House and Senate versions of Obamacare being the base line bills of the negotiations. Hopefully, this summit meeting is more than the President checking off a campaign promise to have all health care negotiations on C-SPAN.
If this summit is a genuine start to bipartisan negotiations, then a few issues need to be settled before the meeting:
1. Start Over – The American people have rejected Obamacare and they want Congress and the Obama Administration to start over from scratch. The election of Scott Brown as Senator from Massachusetts was a strong message, from a liberal state, that Obamacare is not popular with the American people. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll indicates that 31% think the President’s health care plan is a good idea v. 46% a bad idea. CNN/Opinion Research has the numbers at 38% in favor and 58% opposed. It is clear that a minority in Congress is representing the will of a majority of Americans who think Obamacare is a bad idea and it is time for liberals in Congress and the Obama Administration to start listening to the American people. With the overwhelming weight of polling data and election results in Massachusetts indicating widespread opposition, it is time to start over.
2. Take Reconciliation off the Table – The President needs to state publicly that he will not support partisan efforts in Congress to use reconciliation procedures as a mechanism to railroad through pending versions of Obamacare. Reconciliation, commonly referred to as the Nuclear Option in the Senate, allows the supporters of Obamacare to avoid a filibuster in the Senate and ignore the traditional rules that would allow extended debate and amendment. Using reconciliation and relying on one party’s votes to pass an unpopular approach to health care reform would not translate into a bipartisan solution to comprehensive health care reform.
3. Transparency – Transparency has to be any part of a summit and it does not begin and end with the publicly broadcast meeting. First, what may be necessary is for the Obama Administration, Republican Leaders, Democrat Leaders and Moderate Democrats have a private meeting, before any planned public summit to clear the air. There is nothing wrong with having a private meeting to provide an opportunity for members to speak freely and build some needed trust. Right now, there is no trust and there has been a complete breakdown in communication. Maybe they could sit and discuss the core elements of a true bipartisan plan in private, and then have a public summit to air any agreement over a half day. A meeting and summit does not mitigate the need for public hearings in Congress and other means to transparently consider any new elements of a health care bill. The White House had been actively engaged in closed door negotiations as recently as the first week of this year with lobbyists and congressional leaders in a manner that excluded moderate Democrats, Republicans and the American people. This needs to end. It is reasonable for members of Congress to have informal negotiations at times, yet the work product should be subject to transparent hearings in the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction. Any deal should be vetted with the American people and subject to a transparent process.
The great danger in this process is that the Obama Administration checks off a campaign promise then goes on with business as usual. This summit can’t merely be a gimmick where the President lectures Republicans and Republicans lecture the President, then the President forges forward with the same Obamacare bill that has been rejected by the American people. This summit should be where the President starts the process over and engages in real negotiations with a broad audience.