Labor Coalesces: Pass Senate Health Care Bill, But Only If It's Fixed Quickly

your step one sucks. I wouldn't trust this crew to pass anything down the road:

...those Members unwilling to accept the Senate version of the bill without changes, but concerned that they won't get what they're promised in the way of a fix, can hold final passage of the Senate bill hostage until the fixes are taken care of. And they'd be crazy not to, if there's any serious consideration being given to heading down a "fix it later" path.

And here's an additional procedural tip e-mailed to me by Jeff. If House Members are still skittish about voting for the Senate bill straight-up, even after securing a fix through reconciliation, they can use a little procedural trick called a "self-executing rule" (see this CRS report [PDF] for more)-- or at least a self-executing provision in a rule -- to take care of business. At the conclusion of the reconciliation process, when the House and Senate have both passed their bills and have agreed on a conference report settling any differences, the House may opt to include in the rule it adopts to govern debate on that conference report a provision deeming the Senate amendment to H.R. 3590 agreed to by the House. That way, when the House adopts the rule to allow the reconciliation bill conference report to come to the floor, it also agrees to the Senate bill it's amending along the way, just moments before beginning debate on the fix, and without ever having a separate, stand-alone vote on the Senate bill they don't like.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/20/827478/-Can-health-insurance-reform-still-pass

Yaaaay!! Andy gets it!!

The split between SEIU and the AFL-CIO is functional not tonal at least from a practical political standpoint and that really is what this is all about...the policy objectives being the same

All "labor" really cares about is their seven-year excise exemption to give them time to change their contracts. That's almost like tailor made for reconciliation.

I think these are some very reasonable statements, especially compared to the headless-chicken nonsense from a lot of the elected officials. Really I think the labor unions have done a pretty good job throughout this process of simultaneously pushing for strong progressive ends and acting like adults.

Why and the hell does anyone listen to people that represent such a miniscule fraction of American workers and the American electorate. Unions represent about 10% of the workforce, and if you only count private sector workers, they represent a lot less than that. Giving them a seat at the table and acting like they actually matter by giving them a say on how the legislation should be shaped is pathetic.

And of course what would a statement by a labor thug be without commenters claiming, after yet another repudiation of the current health care bill, that "reform" supporters "get it". Because evidently "getting it" is a euphemism for "clueless" and "politically tone deaf". What the fuck has to happen for the people here to realize that the public doesn't want the Democrats' health care "reform" bill? You would have thought a loss in the most liberal state in the union would be enough. But then I guess that would be giving the densest among us too much credit.

This is incomprehensible.
The last administration changed the rules of the game, and with a much smaller majority managed to do things that it wanted to do. At times they said that they had political capital to spend, meaning they had power entrusted to them to do what they could. Their base supported them.
Obviously this administration and this party has a much larger majority and thus much more power.
It's also obvious to everyone that the opposition is only interested in obstruction and destruction, not construction.
But with this 'mandate' they/we are not using our elected power to overcome the obstructive wall of the opposition, but we are rolling over and playing dead. This despite having the power and capability to do just what we claim we want to.
I don't understand it. We can rise up, otherwise we deserve our fate.

Hmmm... this might be politically viable, I'm just afraid it will take too long. But think on how it would actually work. The House passes the Senate Bill and a public option plus package via reconciliation. The Senate Bill goes to the president, who signs it into law. The reconciliation bill goes to the Senate... where it gets shelved.

Progressives gripe, Democrats in Congress start seriously running for reeelection.