What is this with HCR having to go through the House again?

[Skink]

Is that after the Senate uses reconciliation to fix things?

[backscatter712]

1. Going with the Senate Bill + Reconciliation Sidecar plan,

The House will have to pass the Senate Health Care bill as is, which is a problem because the Senate bill severely sucks rocks, and won't get the votes for passage without some ironclad assurance that the Senate will pass the fixes to the bill as agreed upon between the House & Senate.

Then the House and Senate both pass a reconciliation bill containing fixes to the Senate Bill. There's arguing as to whether the House will have to pass the Senate Bill first, or whether the House & Senate can pass the reconciliation bill first, which would technically amending legislation that hasn't been signed into law yet. I think this is resolvable by having the President hold the reconciliation bill on his desk, and wait until the House passes the Senate bill, then he signs the Senate Bill just before signing the reconciliation bill.

[Skink]

3. this is why the Republicans are so mad.

[Wapsie B]

4. Good, I wanna see a complete repug meltdown.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. Fine - they used this repeatedly while they were in power.

[Massacure]

14. The President cannot sit on a bill.

Article 1, Section 7, Clause 2

"Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law."

[dhpgetsit]

2. As I understand it, the House can either sign off on the Senate bill

or bring it back for more amendments.
Any further amendments would have to go back to Senate.

Some hope that the House will sign off as is. Then the Parliamentarian may reconcile the house bill and the Senate bill. The reconciled bill would require 51 votes to pass Senate. It is traditional for the Parliamentarian to base reconciliation on budgetary criteria. This was ignored by Republican Senates. But the good news is that the Public Option reduces the overall cost of the bill, so for budgetary reasons, it could get added to the Senate bill.

But every time I think I have the process figured out the process seems to change so don't take that to the bank.

[stopbush]

5. The House can pass the Senate bill as is. Then Obama would sign it.

But that means that all of the stuff that is in the House version that isn't in the Senate version would get chucked. It also means that all of the onerous stuff in the Senate version would become law.

Ergo, the House Ds need some kind of assurances from the Senate that after passing their existing version they would go to reconciliation to strip out or add provisions that have a direct impact on the US budget. So, they could eliminate the sweetheart deals given to Nelson and Landrieu because those cost money. Eliminating them saves money. Also, they could add the PO in reconciliation because it would also save money. But reconciliation can only address things that effect the budget. Things like covering pre-existing conditions could not be dealt with in reconciliation (the Senate version does address this).

The House Ds are understandably wary of the Senate following through on any promises to go to reconciliation if they (the House) pass the Senate version. After all, the Senate version was put together by the Senate and has all kinds of pork in it (like the Nelson amendment) and pay backs to donors (like the mandate which will enrich insurance companies who give large campaign contributions to some Ds). If it passes as is, the individual Senators get their pork, pork that reconciliation would strip out.

The bottom line is that the House would need to hold their noses and pass the Senate version while crossing their fingers and hoping that the same Senators who didn't have the guts to write a bill as good and as consumer-oriented as the House bill would now agree to go to reconciliation to add the very same provisions that the Senate has already vehemently rejected.

If I was a House member, I'd be wary as well.

The other option is to go to conference and merge the two bills into a single bill, but that would mean that the Senate would have to pass this merged bill by the 60-vote super majority (one assumes the House could muster the votes to pass a merged bill by a simple majority). The Ds no longer have 60 votes in the Senate, so that means that they would need to pick up at least one R vote to pass a combined bill while at the same time holding on to the votes of Nelson, Lieberman and Landrieu. What are the chances of hanging onto those D votes when the pork that got those Ds to vote for the Senate version has been stripped out in the merged version? The answer is "no chance"...which is why the above scenario of the House passing the existing Senate version is the only realistic way to get the bill to Obama's desk.

[timeforpeace]

6. They could have done that all along, right?

[stopbush]

7. Not really.

Don't forget that the House version passed back in November, a month before the Senate version. There was no telling what would be in the Senate version and what would be left out. The House version is infinitely more progressive than the Senate version. Once the House version passed, you don't go back and start all over.

IF the Senate bill had garnered any R support - say, it got 5 Rs votes - then normal procedures would have been to go to conference committee and merge the two bills. At that point, House negotiators would have fought for the PO and other progressive measures, the idea being that the Senate could hold onto enough R votes to get a 60-vote super majority for a vote on a merged bill. But when the Rs made it clear that no votes would be forthcoming - not even from Snowe and Collins - then the writing was on the wall.

Let's not forget that there are currently 300 bills that have passed the House that are waiting for the Senate to act upon. The Rs are blocking everything right now. It's amazing that the Senate HCR bill got passed with the obstructionism.

[Yupster]

8. And then the Reupublican goal will be to

delay the fixes until after the election so they can hit the Democratic House members with the fact that they made the Nebraska and Louisiana deals law by voting for the Senate Bill.

The answer would be "well we'll fix those horrible things after the election," to which the response from the Republicans will be laughter.

[stopbush]

9. Sure, the Rs could tie up the fixes with procedural votes,

but if they do, then they own the NB and LA deals just as surely as do the Ds. The case to be made is that the Rs are refusing to allow fixes to be made that the Rs want made.

Actually, I think that once the HCR passes, the Rs will be less aggressive about being obstructionists for the simple fact that they will have LOST the MAJOR battle. HCR will become their Waterloo, not Obama's. Don't forget that most of the HCR isn't set to start for a couple of years. The easy counter argument to make is that the fixes will take time, but they are MINOR compared to the huge legislation that was passed without a single R vote.

Once the bill becomes law, the provisions in the bill become reality, and the American people will be treated to hearing what the bill actually does for them, rather than the R scare tactics. The same thing happens in elections - you hear all the scare tactics about Obama before the election, but once he's in office, rational people see that he's quite normal.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. They can pass the recon bill first, then pass the senate bill.

Obama just has to sign them in the other order.

[SlingBlade]

10. It's called a last chance wake up call for Democarts before

the Mid-Term Elections.

The real question on this Corporate Health Care Reform Bill now being considered before
a Majority Democratic Congress is this ...

Do ya feel lucky punks ? Well, Do ya ? Evidently so ....

Pelosi: Democrats will retain majority in House
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100228/ap_on_el_ho/us_pelosi_elections

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Houses passes Senate bill. Both chambers pass reconciliation bills.

Obama signs the original bill then the recon. bill. Job done. The reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered.