If you follow us on Twitter, you know we’ve been wondering when the Democrats would pull budget reconciliation out of their top hats. Well, as of this last week, it’s officially on the table, reported The New York Times.
Democrats are openly talking about using the procedure, which would allow them to forgo the 60 votes usually needed to overcome a filibuster. This means they wouldn’t need any Republican support to pass health insurance legislation, just a simple majority.
Granted, they would have to show that the public plan changed federal spending or revenues and that the effects were not “merely incidental ” to the changes in health policy. But this shouldn’t be too tough: Demonstrating that the public plan would save money or cost money would probably suffice.
“If a public plan is shown to have a cost to the government that affects outlays or revenues, it could be included in a health care bill using reconciliation procedures, ” said Martin P. Paone, a former Senate aide who has been consulted by Senate Democrats.
The Republicans — none of whom support a public option — are not happy about this. Senator Orrin G. Hatch denounced the tactic as “an abuse of the process, ” adding that a new public insurance program could “bankrupt the country. ”
But the Dems are not going to back down. Like we blogged about a few posts ago, it’s turning into a do-or-die situation. Even hope for a bipartisan compromise out of the Finance Committee has been abandoned. While the Obama Administration tried to downplay the importance of a public option, it is clearly going to be the pivot point of this historic overhaul.