As momentous as the passage of the House health insurance bill was this weekend, it was actually the easy part. The next step, passage in the Senate, will prove far more treacherous. How much more treacherous? Let’s review.
- In the House, Democrats enjoy a 258 to 177 majority. In the Senate, the Republicans are also a minority but possess considerably more power.
- That means that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could afford losing 40 votes from her own party and still pass the bill. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can’t afford to lose a single vote from his caucus members. And that’s just to bring the bill to the floor; he also needs it to thwart a Republican filibuster.
- What’s more, Ms. Pelosi wields more control over proceedings in the House than Mr. Reid does in the Senate. She has a Rules Committee that determines debate parameters — including which amendments are offered. The best Mr. Reid can do is prepare himself for a near-certain ambush of amendments from Republicans. And possibly Democrats.
- This also means that where the floor debate in the House only took one day, it could (and probably will) take several weeks in the Senate.
And at this point, there isn’t even a bill to try to bring to the floor. Why? To There are two bills that have to be merged into one; a slew of factions to be appeased among the Democrats before even addressing Republican opposition; a plausible threat from Senator Tom Coburn to read all two-thousand pages of the bill aloud.
Phew, that’s a lot.
From where we’re standing, Mr. Reid’s task makes the bill’s passage in the House look as easy as falling off a log.