Sanders: We Should've Used Reconciliation To Pass Health Care Reform

Bernie, you can make it happen! Withhold your vote on cloture, and it's hard to see what alternative there is to reconciliation.

I think what people who oppose that will tell you is that you can't have the kind of comprehensive legislation that the Senate is trying to deal with now, and that may in fact be true. But there are a heck of a lot of things that you can do that would strengthen our health care system in a cost effective way that could be a giant step forward for the American people.

I basically agree with this. What I don't get is why we can't pass the comprehensive legislation that the Senate is trying to deal with and then push for tweaks through reconciliation. Why does it have to be one or the other?

You can't pass this whole bill through reconciliation, you could as I understand pass something like the medicare buy-in or even (assuming there are votes) the public option as a standalone thing. I hope Congresspersons like Sanders or Grijalva will be seriously pushing for this route once the bill passes (it would be of course difficult to do it if the bill hasn't passed, since both the public option and the medicare buy-in as formulated rely on the existence of the exchange).

Whose to say that reconciliation won't be used in the future? Maybe they'll get this imperfect bill passed and then come back with a bill that only concerns the public option? There's a lot of apocalyptic thinking among progressives today, but just because you cash in your winnings doesn't mean you are out of the game. (Kill the bill and all those tea-partiers win.)

If you do reconciliation first, you'll have to do the rest of the bill through reconciliation as well. There's no way you'll get votes from Lieberman and others after the fact. So, you get the big bill passed with 60 votes and then you come back with the public option later.

There's a lot of frustration with Obama -- some of it deserved. But we have to remember, when we were all cheering and clapping that there was one America, that there were no red states and blue states but the United States -- he was pretty much telegraphing that he wasn't going to jam legislation down anyone's throat. It is too bad he's worked hard to bring Lieberman into line because Snowe would be a more appropriate catch. But in the end, he's going to choose the broadest most inclusive approach for this "landmark" legislation.

Three cheers for Bernie! Don't back down! Kill the bill! Force reconciliation or an entirely new effort starting in January!

If we can't use reconciliation to get the public option, then the mandate must be removed.

The optimal Republican scenario is the Democratic Health Care bill allowing insurance companies to raise rates that you are mandated to pay? Whewie, we are already seeing the anger from Democrats who can't understand the 60 vote majority.

No public option, then no mandate.

Vote Yes Bernie. Please don't betray us. We NEED change. And you don't get to home plate before you get to first base.

ThinkProgress, Daily Kos and Fire Dog Lake are all reporting Sen. Sanders may oppose the current health care bill in the senate....is this true?

They have absolutely got to make this thing more effective--more true protection for consumers, get rid of the loopholes, get rid of the antitrust exemption, institute some kind of meaningful cost control, and all of the other concerns that Markos addressed over at DKos. If they don't, then yeah, I hope Bernie opposes cloture. We have given away far too much, and the capitulation to Lieberman was the last straw. (Not to mention the travesty that was the White House pushing to kill the Dorgan Amendment. Talk about destroying cost controls! And protecting Big Pharma at the expense of the American people. God, it makes me sick to see a Democratic administration doing that, and cajoling so many other D's into going along with it.)

Viva Bernie!!!

Sanders and Franken should form a conscience block and dominate these wet noodles.

I'm trying like hell to care about whether HCR passes, and I can't. I'm perfectly willing to admit it may be an improvement on the present system, it's just, I'm in no mood to, yet again, readjust my expectations of muster an enthusiasm for this bill. Not even Krugman or Marshal can make me care.

What it comes down to is that I just don't have another compromise left in these bones, and I know my support or enthusiasm is just a signal to the Village that there's more negotiating room. Nothing will pass if the hippies are for it, so I should have been against HCR with a watered-down public option.

If we bring down HCR, if nothing else, the village will know there are people outside of the tea partiers who have to be taken into account.

.../head-desk

Go Bernie, Go. You're in a lonely field over there but plenty to the left support your work. We can't really wait for poverty to unite us.

If I remember correctly, laws passed by reconciliation have a 10 year sunset clause. That's why the GOP was making such a fuss about making the Bush tax cuts permanent - they will start expiring in 2011 and disappear completely in 2013. Which, by the way, is a great thing.

If the Dems passed HCR through the same process, wouldn't it face the same sunset in 2020? And, with no guarantee of a Democratic majority and/or president then, would that really be a good idea?

As bad as this bill is, Dems need to pass it, then adjust it when it's law. Otherwise, my two young kids will be parents before it comes back up again.

Bernie Sanders in particular and the progress (or should I say retrogress) of the health care reform legislation in general has made me think of the passage that introduces Garrett Epps's novel The Shad Treatment, a thinly fictionalized liberal riff on the Virginia gubernatorial election of 1973.

"He would introduce his bills in committee, and the chairmen would always thank him. They were always very courteous. They'd say something like, 'We'll be glad to give this bill due consideration,' and of course before the session was over, they'd have chopped every one to ribbons. And finally one day when someone told him that his bill would get 'due consideration,' he let all his frustrations out. He reared up, eyes flashing, and he stuck out his finger and he said 'Yes, Mr. Chairman, I know the consideration you'll give this bill. It's the consideration of the fisherman for the shad, Mr. Chairman,' he said. 'When the fisherman catches a shad and brings it into the boat, the poor fish flips and flops and tries to escape. And the fisherman speaks so politely to the shad, he says, "Lie still, little shad! I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to treat you well, I'm not going to do a thing to you except cut your tail off. And I'm not going to do a thing more to you except cut your head off. And after that I'm not going to do a thing to you except cut all your bones out!"' And he pounded on the committee table and said, 'That's the consideration I expect from you, Mr. Chairman. The shad treatment, Mr. Chairman, the shad treatment! And I may have to take it, but I will fry in hell before I'll say thank you!'"

Obviously, we need more Socialists in the Senate...(Note to Glenn Beck--this is what a real socialist looks like.

Yeah, why don't we pass anything now and then "improve" it later with all the leverage we have sold out and all the loopholes we've let in. That worked real well with the banks. Give them everything they want with no strings attached under the rubric of urgency and "preventing meltdown", talk about regulations but don't do anything, then beg them to lend to small business and police themselves better. That's worked wonderfully. Let's try it with so-called health care (so-called because it only seems to care about the profits and power of the insurance industry). Anyone who thinks agreeing to a bad bill is simply a first step to "improvement" is deluded. You don't set precedent by putting your worst foot forward and expect to follow that will "real reform." The template provides the scope for subsequent reform because it actually BECOMES LAW, and as anyone who has DC politics, laws become very difficult to undo. Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. Spike the bill, use reconciliation, or best yet, use this ridiculousness as an opportunity to push for a really strong bill and show who is for the citizenry. Use every procedural trick. Produce!

I thought 'reconciliation' was one of those post Vatican II feel good terms for what used to be called 'confession' back in the good old days. Bernie and Liebie going to see a priest and dragging the Senate along behind them. That would be a sight.
And also with you. Amen.

It's the most obnoxious thing I've ever heard.

Vote for a bad bill, fix it later, OR Vote it down and start over, OR Reconciliation, OR See if the insurance companies would rather write the whole thing for us, OR let the Rupub's and the lying, crazies dance in the street for busting it. Then form the message, BLAME THE REPUBLICANS, use their own words, (lies). Beat the drum, stick to message and tell the American people that is you can't get HC, or if you go bankrupt from getting sick, or your insurance company dropped you in the middle of chemo, or if you just can't afford $1500 a month for your family's insurance, BLAME THE REPUBLICANS! That's exactly what they want.

God bless Bernie Sanders.

One of the last couple true representatives of the PEOPLE left in Washington. I think I may have to move to Vermont soon.

bills in both the House and Senate fail a simple litmus test for health reform legislation: they will not improve the current situation; in fact, they will largely make it worse.

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