* For Congressional Dems who don't feel comfortable passing the Senate Bill until the Senate has also passed a side bill fix, would a public guarantee by President Obama that he would VETO the HCR bill if the two chambers weren't able to agree on a reconciliation fix give them the confidence to go first?
According to Steny Hoyer (D-MD) on Face the Nation this morning, speaking about the possibility of the House taking the lead in moving healthcare reform forward:
"Whether we're willing or not, we have to go first if we're going to correct some of the things that the House disagrees with. Not correct--change, so we can reach agreement. The House will have to move first on some sort of corrections or reconciliation bill, which follows a process that the Republicans followed 16 out of the last 22 times it's been done, for very major pieces, including their tax cuts, which were really more dollar value [than health care.]"
Kent Conrad (D-ND, appearing alongside Hoyer seemed to agree with him that the House needs to pass the Senate bill and take the Senate's word to pass the fix through reconciliation.
With almost 300 bills passed by the House and now on indefinite stand-by/purgatory in the Senate, it's not difficult to imagine that such a suggestion might be a tough sell even for the formidable Speaker Nancy Pelosi --- a stellar vote wrangler if ever there was one!
MY SUGGESTION:
President Obama can move this process forward by GIVING HIS WORD IN PUBLIC TO VETO HCR if the House and Senate cannot agree on a reconciliation "sidecar" bill necessary to address deficiencies (a loaded euphimism in so many ways) in the current Senate Bill.
I trust President Obama enough to be comfortable with this proposition. And I also trust that he is enough of a realist to realize that 2012 would hang in the balance.
I AM WILLING TO TRUST PRESIDENT OBAMA.
***UPDATED*** to add question:
Could a private veto threat communicated to Reid/Pelosi be just as effective to get the House to go forward (while being less politically risky for Obama) than a public one?
And now for sh*ts and giggles...