Another update from POLITICO, on Reid, Pelosi potentially making one last real push for a broad Health Care reform, based on the Senate Bill with a sidecar bill that is pushed through reconciliation.
Here is what the report happened over the weekend, the main news here is that this sounds like the "preferred" solution being considered.
If true, this is as Paul Krugman said "very good news" and an "imitation of sanity" for the party leaders.
"House and Senate leaders spent the weekend mulling over their decidedly narrow options to get reform back on track, as Obama’s advisers took to the airwaves Sunday, vowing to push ahead... Sources say Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are trying to craft a "cleanup" bill that satisfies House liberals by fixing parts of the Senate bill they don’t like."
All the more reason we should be all calling our Reps AND Senators and pushing them to support this. Now.
More after the jump.
The article carries the usual caveats:
"But their challenge is to avoid making it look like a messy stew of legislative deal making — which won’t be easy to do because one of the main things the bill is likely to fix is the so-called Cadillac tax, which would exempt union members through 2017..."
And it goes on:
In terms of pure mathematics, it seems that Reid could muster the 51 votes out of the 59-member Democratic Caucus. But there’s a political equation as well. Even some Democrats are urging him to go slow, including centrists like Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.)....Pelosi doesn’t have votes to pass the Senate health care bill exactly as it was approved last year. But the good news for Democrats is that she might be able to muster the 218 votes she needs to pass something a lot like it. Negotiators were on the brink of a deal when Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate race last week.
And here is the crux of things:
"We have to find out what is most important to our members — getting a bill or getting the bill," a House leadership aide said. "They will probably prefer the Senate bill with fixes than nothing."
As Krugman said rightly: "Right now, the Democrats are, like it or not, the party of health reform. They can either be the party that passed reform, and at least stands for something, or the party that tried to get health reform but proved itself incompetent and weak in the process."
Then the POLITICO article adds:
But, at this point, not even Pelosi knows for certain what her members will accept.
I'd say that's where we come in. Our Congresspeople need to hear from us as loudly as they hear from the Tea Partiers. We are on the one yard line from a historic Health Care bill. Republicans are already clearly out of the picture, and can do nothing more than rail from the sidelines...which they will do either way.
Help push our Congressfolk to have some spine and pass the bill with the sidecar fixes. Let's set up an action diary here on that, or join the efforts over at Balloon Juice.