Endgame: House to begin final push for ObamaCare on Monday

“Here’s what they’ll do: They will take the House health-care bill and mark it up so that it can become a reconciliation vehicle. Republicans will make runs at this via motions to instruct, but since we’re outnumbered, their package will get through the committee. Then they’ll send that shell of a bill to the House Rules Committee. The rules committee will then gut the budget committee’s reconciliation bill and drop in all of the deals that Speaker Pelosi arranges with members who vote for the Senate health-care bill in the House.” Those deals, he adds, “will be hard to scrutinize, and we may never know their full extent, since many of them will be orchestrated outside of health-care legislation.”

Regardless of how bad a reconciliation package looks, Ryan says it is the passage of the Senate bill in the House that troubles him the most. “The Senate parliamentarian made it clear today,” he says. “The Senate bill has to become law before reconciliation can be taken up in the Senate. Knowing this, the Democrats are doing whatever they can to convince House members to walk the plank. But let’s be very clear: If the Senate bill passes in the House, it’s not just some setup for reconciliation — it’s a huge, new federal entitlement that’ll be signed into law.”

“To get that, they need to make promises to members about what’ll come next, so look for them to thread the needle on policy changes and abortion in the budget and rules committees,” Ryan says. “Reconciliation is a distraction for the Democratic leadership — something to talk about with members while keeping their eye on the main prize, which is passing the Senate bill.”

NRO.

It appears that there will be bribes and payoffs, but they won’t be in the reconciliation bill, but hidden in the text of other bills.

So the House Dems don’t get chased out of Pizza Hut like Nelson, but how do they justify voting for the Senate text, which will become law when Obama signs that version?

They have to know Obama and Reid will pivot to Shamnesty and leave them high and dry with thier vote.

Wethal on March 11, 2010 at 6:01 PM

It looks as if they will bribe or threaten their way to 216 votes for the Senate bill without Stupak’s group’s votes (assuming the Stupaks haven’t caved).

The bribes will be hidden in other bills.

The new bill will be the reconcilation bill they’ll have waiting for a vote once Obama signs the Senate version. Before they vote on the Senate bill, at least they will know what reconcialtion loks like. This assumes they have an agreement with the Senate on reconciliation language.

Then they trust Obama and Reid to push for reconciliation.

And the Blue Dogs think the voters won’t hold them accountable in the fall, or if they lose seats and the House, it was worth the sacrifice of the Suicide Squad seats.

Wethal on March 11, 2010 at 6:21 PM

I’m told not to put too much stock in the reports that Democrats will press ahead with a health care bill without the support of a dozen pro-life House Democrats.

A reliable source in the House Democratic leadership told me that Rep. Henry Waxman’s comment that Democrats will move ahead without the support of pro-life Democrats is not representative of the leadership’s position at the moment. It could end up being the direction they go in, but they won’t make any such decisions until they have finalized legislative language and a score from the Congressional Budget Office.

As for language, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met at the Capitol this afternoon, and are working toward finalizing by tonight what will be in the reconciliation package, which would alter the final Senate bill if the House passed it.

The goal then is to present legislative language to House members Friday and hopefully a CBO score if it comes in tomorrow.

Daily Caller.

How they deal with the pro-life Stupak language, I don’t know, as that is a policy matter that can’t be part of reconciliation (unless they plan on having Biden rule that it is.)

Wethal on March 11, 2010 at 6:45 PM