The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has released two reports that details how reconciliation would work and would not be a sharp departure from past practices, and how the one of the changes likely to be included in the reconcilation process would improve the bill.
From the first:
[U]sing the reconciliation process now for health care reform would not represent a dramatic break with the past. The sharp break with past practice occurred in 2001, when reconciliation was used for the first time to pass legislation that was not paid for and greatly worsened the nation’s fiscal position.
Prior to 2001, every major reconciliation bill enacted into law reduced the federal deficit. Until then, reconciliation had been reserved for legislation that met this standard of fiscal discipline. But the standard was tossed aside in 2001. In both 2001 and 2003, the reconciliation process was used to pass costly tax cuts that were not paid for and that have substantially increased deficits and debt.
In response, at the start of the new Congress in 2007, the House and Senate formally adopted rules to restore a fiscal discipline standard to the reconciliation process by barring the process from being used for bills that would increase deficits and debt. If the reconciliation process is used in coming weeks for health reform legislation, that legislation will need to adhere to this standard — rather than to continue the sharp departure from it that the 2001 and 2003 reconciliation bills made.
Here's the range of policy that has been made by reconciliation, as described by CBPP: welfare reform, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, and health care programs like CHIP, Medicare Advantage, and COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act). There's nothing extraordinary about the use of this legislative tool and any policy created by it is not automatically tainted--any Senator who says otherwise is being disingenuous, at best.
On the excise tax compromise that has already been negotiated by the House, Senate, and White House, the CBPP says:
Many analysts, including Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman, have found the basic concept of the excise tax to be sound but have noted that certain aspects of the Senate-passed measure — those that, in the popular parlance, would have taxed some "Chevy" plans as well as "Cadillacs" — were problematic and needed to be changed. "The details of the excise tax should be fixed," Krugman wrote, "but it’s on balance a good idea." (See Box 1 below.) Sharing that basic view is a broad cross-section of health economists, including many of the nation’s leading progressive economists.
The recent agreement that the Administration and labor leaders negotiated — which, like the basic concept of the excise tax itself, has been misunderstood — fixes the key flaws that Krugman and others identified. At the same time, it maintains the measure’s expected effectiveness in helping to slow health care cost growth over time.
The elements of reform that would probably be included in reconciliation would be there to improve the final legislation, making it fairer and more affordable, and if they can figure out how to get the national exchange included in the reconciliation bill--sources tell me they are working on a way to accomplish that--the insurance reforms might actually even work, as it would create federal oversight. A public option, which was supported by a majority of Senators, is still hugely popular even in swing Dem congressional districts and (as the CBO showed consistently) would significantly control costs for the nation's healthcare system.
Which is just one of the reasons pressure is increasing on the Senate to get on board.
Today, 49 leading health care experts--who recently urged the House to act--are now acknowledging that the House deserves an act of good faith from the upper chamber before it pulls the trigger on reform.
"Key differences between the bills, such as the scope of the tax on high-cost plans and the allocation of premium subsidies, should be negotiated through the reconciliation process. Key elements of a reconciliation compromise enjoy broad support in both houses," reads a new letter from the experts to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV); Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Max Baucus (D-MT); and President Obama. "Other discrepancies between the House and Senate bills can be addressed through other means."
It's not rocket science, Senate Dems, and it's time to act.
Update: And just to keep everybody guessing, now Ben Nelson says he'd be open to reconciliation after all, depending.
Nelson told Nebraska reporters that he could support passing current health legislation using budget reconciliation as long as he believes the underlying bill is good.
"I’ve been asked about whether I’d support using the process known as reconciliation now," Nelson said. "So, I want to make it clear: If I support a bill, then I will vote for it regardless of whether it takes 50 votes to pass or 60 votes to pass. My position doesn't change just because the House or Senate decides to change the process."
Given his recent statement on the abortion provisions, however, in which he basically told reporters it was a bait and switch to get the Stupak language in the final bill, who the hell knows?