The conventional wisdom over the last week is that the election of Scott Brown over Martha Coakley has seriously damaged - or at least altered - the prospects for passage of comprehensive health care reform. After all, Democrats needed 60 votes in the Senate for cloture on a conference committee bill still being negotiated with the House. Without 60 votes that is no longer possible.
But would things have really been any different with Senator Coakley and not Senator Brown? Obviously Coakley would have been a yea vote for cloture. But let's not forget the warnings issued by conservadems like Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and, of course, Joe Lieberman. When the Senate voted for the existing bill each of these Senators made it abundantly clear that they would vote against a conference committee bill too skewed toward the House's plans. In particular, any talk of a public option or a far increased Medicaid subsidy would mean the loss of one of these conservadems. And there is no reason to think that these jerks were bluffing. In other words, with 60 votes we really weren't any closer to health care reform than we are now.
Once we clear through the fog a bit I think it becomes clear that having 59 caucusing Democratic Senators is a blessing in disguise. Why? Because now Senate leaders can't even pretend to need 60 votes. The non-budget stuff has already passed the Senate and can be passed verbatim by the House. As many have argued here and elsewhere, the House can simply pass its own budget-relevant fixes, including a public option, through reconciliation.
What we need to keep in mind, then, is that conservadems just became irrelevant with the loss of Martha Coakley. And the chance for passing a more robust health reform plan - after the the current bill already passed in the Senate - just INCREASED with the loss of Coakley. After all, does anybody really think Harry Reid would go along with reconciliation for, say, a public option bill if he still had 60 votes in his caucus? No. The conservadems would have insisted that the existing bill was plenty enough, and that any further reforms would be a non-starter.
Whether any of our fearless leaders on the Hill get this is uncertain. The previously tepid Conrads and Baucuses seem open to reconciliation - they were vehemently against it before.
So the Senate should begin the process of passing follow-up patches (including eliminating the Cornhusker Kickback) under reconciliation so the House knows the Senate is serious. Then the House should pass the Senate bill and push for further reconciliation-based reforms.
The permanent filibuster was never part of the Framer's agenda for the US Congress. Perhaps necessity will convince Senate Democrats that they need to get things done through reconciliation if they want anybody to support them.