Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) has now opened the door to passing health care reform through the budget reconciliation process, a position that he famously opposed prior to this week's special election in Massachusetts and the election of Scott Brown, Republican obstructionist Tea Bagger.
Who would have imagined that the election of Scott Brown would put some iron in the spine of Democrats (sic). As a tax paying progressive American, I am delighted to finally see our elected officials pursue every possible avenue toward making health care a right for all Americans.
I'm starting to think that the election of Scott Brown is a blessing in disguise!
From The Hill:
The Senate Budget Committee Chairman said Wednesday he’s willing to use special rules to force changes to the healthcare legislation through the Senate with a simple majority vote.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) made clear his openness to applying budget reconciliation to healthcare, a position he opposed prior to this week’s special election in Massachusetts, is contingent on the content of the bill.
"If the House passed the Senate bill, could reconciliation, that process, be used to fix things that might be improved upon? Yes," Conrad said. "Would I support it? I can’t know that without knowing what would be included in the package."
http://thehill.com/...
Conrad's comments (below) lend weight to speculation that congressional Democratic leaders plan to have the House pass the Senate healthcare reform without changes, then they can pass a second bill with changes hashed out between the two chambers' leaders and the White House.
Some of the key compromises that were tentatively made between House and Senate Democratic leaders and the White House last week, however, could fall under the rubric of a budget reconciliation bill, such as changes to the taxes that would finance the healthcare bill. Conrad noted, however, that resolving disputes over issues like abortion funding and immigration would be much harder to accomplish through reconciliation.
Today, President Obama announced that he will not try to jam through a bill before Scott Brown is seated and I don't think that this conflicts with the plan. They're not going to try to get the reconciled bill through the Senate before Brown is seated. Instead they're probably going to have the House pass the Senate bill and make the conferences fixes in reconciliation. Checkmate! A better Heath care bill is passed! (Hopefully)