In a move that could be signaling that House leadership will say "no way, no how" to passing the Senate's bill as is, Chris Van Hollen says the bill could pass through reconciliation.
"Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for the process of using reconciliation," Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said.
"Getting health-care reform passed is important," Van Hollen said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s "Political Capital with Al Hunt," airing this weekend. "Reconciliation is an option."
Should Democrats take that route, the legislation would have to be scaled back because of Senate rules.
He also said he expects Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley to win in Massachusetts.
Van Hollen said Republican predictions that the political climate had changed so much that they can capture the 40 seats needed to regain control of the House was "pure hallucination."
The alternative that has been floated, should Coakley lose next Tuesday, has been for the House just to pass the Senate bill as is, with no changes. That means all of the elements they've been negotiating for the past few weeks, the excise fix, the overlay of a national regulatory framework for the exchange, ending the anti-trust exemption, more generous subsidies, would be out the window. A strong majority--190 Dem members--have said they would not vote for that bill with the Senate's excise tax. Today Barney Frank seemed to emphasize that saying that if Brown wins, it will "kill the health bill." Now, House leadership is pointing a way out of that eventuality.