Determined or Delusional? House Leadership Sounds Optimistic on HCR

I hope that fist is aimed at Senator Webb.

Delusional.

I'd be thrilled if Democrats pulled this off...but I just don't think they have the courage to do it.

One thing nobody's addressing is that given a craven refusal to challenge the Senate supermajority nonsense in one way or another, there will also be no jobs bill. And regardless of what happens with health care, continued high unemployment with the perception that the government isn't even trying to do anything about it will be more than enough to sink the Dems.

An incoherent, lobbyist-run party that offers precious little to either its loyalists or independents will never hold power for long.

If you have a Democratic Representative, write them *now* and let them know what you want. This is a gut-check moment, and it's going to happen very quickly, because the SOTU is the 27th. If you want input, it needs to go in tomorrow.

Personally, I think the House should pass the Senate bill.

"the only way they could sign on to the Senate bill is if it was accompanied immediately, or even preceded by, a separate bill, making a number of major preemptive changes to what they regard as an inferior package."

This sounds like a great plan. And you could do it without the Senate, so long as you use reconciliation. Just PASS. THE DAMN. BILL.

"You should do the other stuff first and then pass the Senate bill," Nadler told me. "I don't see how I could vote for the Senate bill," otherwise.

The "reconciliation fix" first. I like it Mr Nadler. And I wouldn't trust the bastards either.

Throw in a robust public option, which can be done through reconciliation, IIRC, and win back a boatload of the base at the same time.

Of course it won't happen.

A boy can dream...

The House needs to sit down with Rahm in the morning and plan a strategy for passing health care reform. I think adding a public option through reconciliation would be a very good thing too.

Left and right need to grow the fuck up. We've been listening to prima donna's dragging their feet for 7 months.

PASS THE GODDAMN BILL.

You have til 2014 to revise it.

"the only way they could sign on to the Senate bill is if it was accompanied immediately, or even preceded by, a separate bill, making a number of major preemptive changes to what they regard as an inferior package."

House Liberals after all these months finally discover incrementalism.

If the House Democrats kill the bill, they'll be in the minority come November. They're pretty damn stupid, so I wouldn't put it past them though.

What are they going to run on on November "We did absolutely nothing in the year we had super majorities, but elect us to have it again"?

I say stick it to the insurance companies now.

Pass a single piece of legislation that just says that "denying healthcare coverage for pre-existing conditions and terminating healthcare coverage because of the onset of illness is illegal."

That single provision is highly popular, but you know that Lieberman troll and Nelson and all the Republicans will vote against it.

Oh, and expand Medicaid to include 55-65 year olds, while also expanding Medicaid to the uninsured. That can be done with reconciliation.

And screw Harry Reid. He's incapable of leading. We need the President to lead, not just stay above the fray and play policy wonk.

There's a way to move forward.

Progressive Democrats shouldn't just accept the Senate bill; not unless they want organized labor to sit out 2010. This would mean going back on the deal Democrats made to fix the tax on health benefits.

Instead, the House should quickly prepare a second bill, one that makes changes to health care reform that are allowed by the reconciliation rules and that can get 50 votes in the Senate. Then the House can pass both bills together. Then the Senate bill becomes law, and the Senate as part of the deal would take up the second House bill.

The House can make sure that this second bill contains popular measures that they can run on.

Time to bring Pelosi down, she is not competent
she is an embarassemtn to women across the country...

By attempting bipartisanship and compromise with the GOP, Obama managed to triangulate himself into a lame duck after only one year in office! This is a remarkable achievement - there have been many one-term presidents, but NOT one has managed to become a lame duck during his very first year in office. So, congratulations Barry - you are a remarkable weasel!

We are one vote down, time to throw Joe Lieberman out the back door... as well as all the DINO dems... Blanche Lincoln was worthless the day she was born... who cares what Arkansas thinks... she's a bull dyke with no teeth, god help her husband... giving voice to Sens who represent 10% of Americans is crazy... the time has come to put ignornant farmers in their place...

Nadler actually signaled how you have a conference on this w/o having a conference report. You negotiate the changes, almost all of which will fit nicely into a reconciliation bill, pass the Senate bill and immediately take up reconciliation afterwards. It is a little round about but totally doable.

Also, I am very thankful the House is holding the ball right now b/c Nancy Pelosi is a strong Speaker and my guess is will figure out how to make this work. We'd be screwed if Harry Reid held the chips right now.

Just joining in here after reading TPM for years. When did Josh / TPM go all DLC on us regarding health care reform - as in "we have to pass ANYTHING or we're all doomed". I have had a lot of respect for TPM and Josh over the years, but this sounds way too much like he's somehow been put in the veal pen on this issue. One has to wonder why?

Josh feels that way because an imperfect bill might be made more perfect through incrementalism. Which might have been true if Reid hadn't allowed himself to be punked by Olympia Snowe.

Vote Green I say, Congress will still be useless and nothing will get done....but you will feel a hell of a lot better about yourself and that seems to be the only thing you could hope to accomplish by voting now.

The lesson for the party is that it must break with the failures of the Obama administration. The democratic party needs Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policies, not Herbert Hoover’s pro-bankster policies. This election was clearly a repudiation of Obama.

People will not accept slashing medicare spending, nor the forced purchase of insurance from thug insurance companies – both at the heart of Obama’s health care plan.

People won’t accept the continuing bailout of Wall Street and the banksters by Obama and his friends Bernanke, Geithner, Summers.

People won’t accept Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

People won’t accept the president’s “no growth” carbon tax cap and trade that will kill energy intensive industries in the US and drive all of this real production overseas.

If the democrats are to provide real leadership, we must organize the flow of government credit to put the unemployed back to work in skilled, physically productive jobs… and this means real industrial jobs, not “green jobs” like washing solar panels and maintaining windmills – but real jobs building hospitals and schools and water projects and high speed rail lines and nuclear power plants. The insolvent large banks, who with twisted accounting have largely avoided realizing most of their losses in real estate and speculative paper, must be taken through bankruptcy reorganization, and the speculative unpayable debts written off. We must start again the flow of credit specifically targeted to real production in agriculture, mining, forestry, and industrial development.

The key is to have a pro-growth, pro-progress, intensive industrial expansion program that will put people back to work and improve everyone’s standard of living. This is the only solution. If the democrats fail to do this, then the people will throw them out of office.

In a counter-intuitive way, the Brown win may empower the progressive side, by forcing otherwise reconciliation resistant senators into a survival mode posture where they accept it as the price of house approval of the original senate hcr bill.

I think that the Progressives (Weiner, et al) are just making noise and will fall in line. How often is it that the Progressives actually matter to the rest of the Democratic Party? They will probably push hard for a public option now in the reconciliation portion. Pelosi will whip them into line, I swear that woman must have dirt on everyone ;). She seems to be the *only* leader in the Democratic Party right now. I believe her more than I do the President when she says HCR will pass.

When in danger, when in doubt
Run in circles, scream and shout

I don't have the answer, but I can tell you that this ain't it.

I am from the UK and it baffles me why so many people in your country despises Obama. We wish we had a leader like him here.

Also, to say that Obama has not achieved much is the biggest lie of the millennium. Moreover, what is so bad in having free health care? And what is the problem with the middle ground? Let me be clear, this loss can be blamed on the extreme left element of the democratic party that refuses to accept that in life you always and often have to compromise to get anything done.

Websites like the huffington post have turned against Obama because the public option was not part of the senate bill, on the other hand, they forgot that some things must be done in an incremental manner.

In closing, Americans do not appreciate what they have in Obama and as such, they do not deserve him

America under Bush - Gave aid to african countries to give their population free HIV drugs, while letting Americans die because of lack of health care

America under Bush - Started two wars, wrecked the economy with tax cut for massive corps, but failed to provide universal health care for Americans.

America today is the most unequal society in the developed world and all thanks to the republicans. Hope the people of Mass. get what they deserve "NO CHANGE"

Pres. Obama escalated in Afghanistan. He became the owner of Bush's foreign policy folly.
Pres. Obama continued Paulson's Wall Street giveaway. He became the owner of Bush's blatantly pro-corporate policy.
Pres. Obama and the Democrats pursued bipartisanship in preference to writing strong legislation on HCR, the stimulus, and other bills. He becomes the owner of Bush's failed economic policies.

Is it fair that after a mere 12 months, the catastrophe of the Bush administration is laid on Pres. Obama's shoulders? Maybe not, but politics is supposed to be fair? Please....

It's clear that the 'purists' have had it right all along. Will the Democrats listen?

Delusional...

Not because, as Barney Frank seems to say, that we should back off because the original bill was passed before Brown's victory and thus no longer represents the will of the people...

Rather, you are going to see a drumbeat of DINO whiners begin to back off supporting any bill whatsoever in a vain attempt to preserve their electoral viability. Herseth is just the first...

It is dead for a generation...

Well, I certainly hope that the answer is "determined", but I can't help but note that "determined" and "delusional" are not the only two possible answers. For example, "lying".

You carve up the bill, retain the popular elements of the bill like banning insurance denial for pre-existing conditions.

This would in effect be a bigger blow to the insurance companies than if the Senate bill had been written into law.

Obama was elected to be a pragmatic populist, and its about time he shows that he has the political chops to be one.

Good we deserve it......Those who have it, don't want it or know what the uck to do with it.

When you loose it, don't complain.

To those 12 blue dogg arse holes.....uck off and I hope you take a beating like MA just took.

The dems ucked around, and ucked around, including you Mr. President Obama, we elected you to fight for shit we have not have a chance to fight for and what happens...you water the darn thing down waiting for one of the klansmen men or the two klanswoman 9Ugly arse Snow or Collins) to do some sort of majical vote.

Guess what....you waited and this is what the elected dems got....more water on a bill that has taken of 1/4th of the 4 yrs Obama was elected.

Let the clowns figure this out but Make it fucking quick.

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

I am DISGUSTED with the Dems. For God's sake, they had an entire calendar year to come together and pass meaningful legislation and now look at them. They're playing right into the GOP's hands.

If the Republicans were holding a super majority and held the presidency, they wouldn't hesitate to push their agenda through.

I am ASHAMED of my party. They're coming off as a bunch of weak , naive ninnies. They have managed to take a once in a lifetime opportunity to get things done and throw it down the toilet.

What a joke!

We just fired the shot heard around the world, again.
Do you remember what happened the last time?

Proud Massachusetts Voter...