Plan B: Democrats Consider How To Pass Health Care If Coakley Loses

Sounds good to me, but I question whether the Democrats have the nerve to face the nonsense the GOP and media will throw. They seem not to understand that a few days or even weeks of an onslaught would fade, and would beat the hell out of abject failure to pass the bill. But I guess we'll see. If Mass. voters to the left of Sarah Palin get their heads out their asses Tuesday, it won't matter. It's no comfort that Scott Brown would be crushed in 2012; we need Plans B, C, D and E if this aging Ken doll actually wins the seat.

I don't see them having the votes, or the will, to fix the crappy Senate bill, even if they can get it through the House. "We'll fix it later" is never a good option, because something else always comes up to block that 'later'.

If they hadn't gotten locked into the idea that they need 60 votes to do anything they'd be in a better position right now.
They'd also have a better shot at winning elections: what voters are seeing is a party that can't get its act together under any circumstances.

They asked for a majority, and we gave them one.
They asked for 60 votes in the senate, and we got it for them.
They still can't get anything done.
So why should we give them anything more?

Thank heavens - this is the only sane way to pass it at this point. I even think if Coakley wins, this is the way to go.

I don't trust putting the compromise bill up to a 60 person vote bill in the Senate at all. The Senate has done their work for now - let Rahm and Pelosi arm twist their votes into getting this thing through.

The House could swallow the Senate Bill whole, Obama could sign it, THEN the House could immediately introduce legislation to change it.

That change in the payment structure, such as what was negotiated with the unions, could then be passed through reconciliation in the Senate.

Done.

Dems plan dictatorship of proletariat.

I had been wondering whether this approach was possible and it certainly sounds to me like the best of a bad set of options.

Everywhere I turn, online, TV, newspapers I see nothing but negative reporting for Dems on the Senate race in Ma. Someone from the White House made a negative comment the other day. If it isn't newscasters its talking heads, but the worst is when Democrats add to it. Now they're talking about contingency plans and reconciliation for health care if she loses.

This is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.

And if the people in Ma allow this republican to win that seat then they deserve everything that follows, but sad to say, me and many others don't deserve what will follow.

Pass the bill and MOVE ON TO THE ECONOMY.

It is time to work on JOBS!

The progressive Dems in the House should stand firm and refuse what the insurance companies and other limousine riding laves to wealth want, namely, the passage of the make private insurers wealthier Senate Bill.

No Bill is better than this Bill.

Anything they pass through reconciliation will have a sunset provision attached, and it's not certain they can get fifty votes using that tactic. The House Dems should have passed the Senate bill word for word as soon as they could schedule a vote. There was no way to convince Lieberman and Nelson to vote for a more progressive bill. They screwed around pretending there was no Senate for a month, and now the entire bill is at risk. If they had been smart, the bill would now be law, they would be on to climate change or the economy now, and Obama would be able to talk about his great victory in the SOTU. Instead, they decided to play pretend for weeks and we might get nothing.

I am hoping Ms. Coakley wins on Tuesday. If she loses, however, the Republicans will press to get Brown certified and seated quickly. I read that the Democratic state officials in Massachusetts have 10 days for the certification, during which period the Democrats in the US Senate with Senator Kirk could pass a modified health care bill.

My suggestion is that if the Republicans try to make a big fuss about getting Brown seated quickly, the Democrats can push back hard -- and with legitimacy -- by pointing out that the Republicans in Minnesota took many months to certify Al Franken as the winner of the 2008 Senate election in that state, and the Republicans like Cornyn in the US Senate were very supportive of that extensive delay in seating Franken. If the Senate Democrats and White House are forceful in pointing that out to the press, it will make Republican complaining about any delay in seating Brown much less effective.

Just have to say, the easy way to avoid having the Senate sticking its fingers in the pie a second time is for the House to pass the Senate bill, and send it to the President. Very simple, and that ends the discussion.

It's a technique Sen. Paul Tsongas used on a controversial bill, the one that resulted in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which required Congressional consultation to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), in 1980. Carter signed the bill in December, after he lost the election.

See page 230 onward through 245 at: Paul Tsongas and the Battles over Energy and the Environment, 1974-1980, By Dane Morris Netherton
(A PhD dissertation, WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY, Department of History, MAY 2004 )

Hello, I'm sort of unfamiliar with politics; what does it mean when they are trying to pass a more "progressive" bill? Is it just more distinguished from our present healthcare system?

January 18, 2010
http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0110/Pelosi_We_will_have_health_care_one_way_or_another.html?
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Pelosi: "We will have health care, one way or another"

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells reporters back home in San Fran that there will be health care reform whether or not Republican Scott Brown wins the Massachusetts Senate race tomorrow. A Republican win would cost Democrats the 60-vote majority they need to pass reform.

SanFran Chron's Joe Garofoli reports:

"Certainly the dynamic would change depending on what happens in Massachusetts," Pelosi told us and our notebook-toting brethren Monday in San Francisco at an MLK event. "Just a question about how we would proceed. But it doesn't mean we won't have a health care bill."

She went on to say that Brown has said he want to go back to the drawing board on health care. Not in my House, Madame Speaker said.

"There is no back to the drawing board," Pelosi said. "The Republicans in Congress have said we will kill health care reform. They are the handmaidens of the insurance company."

"Let's remove all doubt, we will have health care -- one way or another," Pelosi said. "Back to the drawing board means a great big zero for the American people."