reconciliation

crossposted from a comment at FDL Read below the fold...

Ezra Klein is known as a bright young policy wonk who enlisted in the DC village, by becoming a blogger and correspondent for the Washington Post with a corner on the health care "reform" debate. Many of his writings have been very sophisticated analyses of one or more obscure feature of the House and Senate “reform” bills, which at the same time are careful to remain within the "village mainstream" of acceptable political prescriptions and advice to policy makers. Read below the fold...

Earlier today, I wrote about “sidecar reconciliation” and the difficulty of passing it, and concluded, in light of Lawrence O'Donnell's remarks on MSNBC about parliamentary maneuvers, encountered a number of times each day, still needing 60 votes to overcome them, that Republicans can block HCR through reconciliation if they want to. Read below the fold...

Well, it's official, or pretty official anyway. Scott Brown has been elected to Teddy Kennedy's old seat and Martha Coakley has conceded. Some Democrats are blaming Coakley for running an inept campaign, and this may well have accounted for Brown's margin of victory. But the real question is what allowed him to get close at all. The theory I subscribe to says that the Massachusetts special election for the Senate became nationalized around the pending health care reform bill. Read below the fold...

Over the past four days two mega-threads appeared at Firedog Lake's (FDL's) Seminal web site. The first was created in response to a diary by “realworld” called “Why I won't be voting for Martha Coakley on Tuesday" received 604 comments, a very large number for that site. Read below the fold...

[Several websites where the following info was drawn from listed at end.]

Where We are Now – A Summary

The Senate Bill will go through the “reconciliation process” with the House version that was passed in November.

Both houses will vote on it and the President will try to sign off on it by the time of the State of the Union address in late January.

The President is leaning it is said toward the Senate rather than House bill, especially in terms of the funding. [tax on middle class insurance benefits rather than on wealthy income.]

The Biggest Dispute for Reconciliation -- Funding Read below the fold...

Here's Cromwell's Again

Hey, Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd, while both of you have been doing too little good for my taste, Cromwell's plea:

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Read below the fold...

Read below the fold...

Bill Moyers hosted an interesting conversation the other day among Robert Kuttner, Matt Taibbi, and himself about health care reform, the performance of the Administration to this point, and the relations of progressives with the President. The conversation focused in part on how Taibbi and Kuttner would vote on the Senate's pending legislation, if it were up to them. Read below the fold...

Read below the fold...

The solid front of Democratic Party progressives supporting the Senate's health care form bill, has now cracked wide open with Howard Dean's call to kill the Senate bill and start over in the House with reconciliation. Read below the fold...